Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to history the Oak Academy.

My name is Mr. Arscott and today we're going to have our second lesson looking at why different stories are told about Britain's journey to democracy.

Now, we haven't done our first lesson where we look to the Whig story, make sure you do that first because if not, this lesson won't make much sense.

Right, today I'm going to ask you to get your touchdown the workers' story of political reform, make sure you got a piece of paper and a pen so you can do that.

Haven't got those things pause the video at this point so you can get them if you have write touchdown what I get my head at the way.

So the workers story of political reform.

Now we're going to start with a true or false recapping what we learned last lesson.

So what I'm going to ask you to do, is in your margin, write down the letters A to D.

And then next which one I want you to just write either true or false.

So pause the video now as you read through these, and then just write true or false depending on whether you think the statement is true or false.

Unpause the video once you're done.

Right, welcome back.

Let's see how many you managed to get right.

So well done if for A you put true.

So it's true that before the Great Reform Act of 1832, Britain was a constitutional monarchy, and constitutional monarchy is a country where a parliament and a king or queen can rule together.

The picture on the right shows the British Parliament in 1833.

Right for, B well done, if you put false, it's not true that the Great Reform Act of 1832 gave working class people the vote for the first time.

In fact, working class people weren't given the motion 1832 only middle class people were.

For C well done if you put true.

In 1867 and 1884, parliament passed laws which increased the number of voters.

And for D well done if you put false.

Whig historians have some believe things are gradually getting better, not worse.

So well done if you managed to get those right if not managed correctly your notes and write out what the correct sentence would be.

So our inquiry question which has guided these few lessons is why a different story is told about Britain's journey to democracy.

Now, last lesson, we looked at the Whig story about parliament.

Now today, we're going to look at one of the other stories, the working class story.

Let's briefly just kind of recap what happened last lesson.

So the Whig story, which is all about parliament, that we looked at last lesson, emphasises Britain's gradual change into a democracy.

And the Whig story also emphasises the idea that it was a story of progress, so things are getting better.

Now, the Whig story looks at key events in our history, when government was improved for the better or when at least Whigs think it was improved the better.

So the key we're looking at is the bit which is looking very complicated in that diagram, the bit is in orange.

Now during this 19th century, the British Parliament passed a series of laws, which increased the number of people who had a right to vote in elections.

And these laws gradually made Britain more democratic.

However, a working class story might look slightly different.

And this time I'm emphasising different events.

So working class person, or the story of the workers of Britain might emphasise these different events.

Now, these events, which I put on this timeline, are times when ordinary people challenged their rulers.

So working class three could start way way back in the Middle Ages with the peasant revolt.

And this event was so long ago, it doesn't even fit on my timeline, and that's why I put some dots there to show that it's way before when the timeline starts.

Now the French Revolution is another example of event when people rose up against their rulers.

And the radicals in the French Revolution they tried to create a democracy inspired radicals in Britain.

Then there's the Peterloo Massacre and the Great Reform Act with two events where workers felt that Britain's rulers show they would not give workers the vote.

Now, our story today is concerned with the period after 1832 when the workers put pressure on the government to force them to reform the franchise, you remember from last lesson, the franchise means the right to vote.

Now, an interesting point to consider is why the Whigs and the working view of 1832 Act was so different.

So the Whigs saw the 1832 reform Act as a great success.

Whereas in the worker story the 1832 Reform Act is seen as a great betrayal.

So time when the working class were betrayed.

Now, you may remember seeing a diagram like this before, now it shows a simplified version of the British class system.

Now the wealthiest and most powerful people are at the top, we can call them the upper class, we could also call them the aristocracy, sometimes they call it the nobility.

Now below the upper class, there is the middle class, and middle class people earn their own wealth, they don't inherit wealth like the upper class do.

And they earn wealth by doing pretty well paid jobs.

So things like being lawyers, or doctors, and the wealthiest middle class people, they would maybe own their own businesses.

So in the 19th century, you start getting middle class people who made lots of money from owning factories.

And the picture on the right shows a typical middle class factory owner.

Now the working classes, they will be at the bottom of the class system.

And the working class were experiencing huge amounts of change at this time.

So many were moving to cities the first time and they're working at factories for low wages.

We can see a picture as well of a typical working class woman on the right.

Now during the early 19th century, both the middle class and the working class were growing in size.

Now, that doesn't yet explain why the Reform Act was seen as a betrayal.

So let's find out why.

Well, before 1832, the middle class and the working class had been working together to try and change Britain.

Both groups wanted the vote and they thought was unfair, that the upper classes were keeping the vote themselves.

Now, when different groups work together, we can call it an alliance.

Then the 1832 Act gave the vote to the middle class people but not working class people.

And many workers felt betrayed by this.

Now, some workers had even lost their lives fighting for the vote in the 1820s and 1830s.

In events like one we can see on the right, that was a riot that happened in Bristol in 1832.

So after Reform Act, many people in the middle class did not seem that interested in helping the working class get the vote anymore and it seemed from the working class perspective, it seemed like the middle and upper classes were now working together against Britain's workers.

So the working class felt betrayed by the middle class.

And were very angry about this after the 1832 Reform Act.

Right, let's quickly check your understanding.

So why did the 1832 Reform Act feel like a betrayal for the working class? Alright, pause the video read through these options and then unpause it once you've made the choice you think is correct.

Okay, welcome back.

So well done, if you chose option three, the middle class were no longer allies of working class in trying to reform the voting system.

So what happened after this betrayal? Well, workers started trying to change things bring back and win the vote by themselves.

They weren't going to rely on the middle class help anymore.

Now it's worth remembering.

There were millions of working class people So all I'm going to be able to do today is tell you a few stories, which I think are interesting and hopefully illustrate how some members of the working class try to get the word, vote.

Now one important story is the story of William Lovett.

And you can see a picture of him here.

Now he was born in Cornwall, and he was a very skilled craftsman, and he made cabinets.

That meant he needs to be good at using tools, and you need to be very good at working with wood.

Now, when he was a young man, he moved to London to try and make more money.

And when he got to London, he found there are lots of other skilled workers like him, who were either losing their jobs or getting less pay because of the new industrial machines.

Now, he wants to get the vote and he worked with members of the middle class and other working people to try and get the vote before the 1832 Reform Act.

And he had really disappointed after the 1832 Act, he didn't give workers the vote and he thought it was really important that he had did so they could try to change that difficult work conditions.

So, after 1832, he started planning how other workers could win the vote.

And in 1838 Lovett and some friends of his wrote an important document called the People's Charter.

And this People's Charter or The Charter call it demanded workers be given the vote.

And it became hugely popular and those who support it became known as the Chartists.

Now the Chartists agreed on what they wanted.

They wanted to make sure that working class people had the vote, and their posters and leaflets like the one you can see on the right, which was shared really widely.

And these posters and leaflets summarised Lovett's aim of getting the vote for all working men.

Now even though all Chartists agreed that's what they wanted to get all working men on the vote, they disagreed on how they are going to achieve that how they're going to make sure that all working men got the vote.

Now one clue we can see about how some Chartists are thought they get the vote can be seen in this picture, I might want to pause the video very briefly so you can have a scan of it and try to work out what you can see and what might be going on.

Now, here in this middle section, are Gryphon men carrying something.

Now what they were carrying the request so many men to carry it at all could be so heavy.

Now what actually was, was that it was a document.

So a huge, huge document.

And this document stated the Chartist aims that all men should get the vote.

And but underneath those aims, it then had signatures and had signatures from millions of people who supported those aims of getting them the vote.

Now amazingly, the Chartists collected over 3 million signatures in this particular picture.

Now, because the 3 million signatures underneath the age of the Chartist, it became such a huge document it required all these men to carry it.

Now, we call these kind of documents, petitions.

And these chartists and chartists like Lovett were hoping that by using petitions like this, and carry out marches like this, they'll be outswaying the rulers of Britain, that the voting system should change and workers should be given the vote.

Now in this particular picture, and often when the Chartists collected petitions, they marched to Parliament, they wanted to present this document with the signatures, and the aim of the Chartists to Parliament to make them consider changing the voting system.

Now, petition may well be a new word you saw, it's a good idea to pause the video now and write down this key word.

Unpause the video when you're done.

Welcome back.

So, Lovett thought that the Chartists could change things by trying to persuade people by using petitions and publicising their aims. But other Chartists disagreed, and they thought that persuasion wouldn't work.

So, these Chartists became known as physical force, Chartist, and that's because they believe physical force will be needed to force Britain's rulers to give workers the vote.

So another story we can tell to help us understand this, is the story of this man here, William Cuffay.

Now, interestingly, Cuffay was actually born on a ship and the ship that was sailing to Britain from the Caribbean, and his parents actually been slaves.

Now Cuffay was a skilled labourer and he'd worked as a tailor.

Now he, like Lovett had seen how industrialization was having a negative effect on workers.

It was making them poor and some were losing their jobs.

So Cuffay like Lovett, became so he wanted to win the working class of the vote so that they could protect their interest.

Now, unlike Lovett he didn't think petitions and persuasion would be enough in order to get the workers the vote.

So what he did is he planned to use vandalism.

So just attacking public buildings in order to get Britain's rulers to pay attention and take the Chartists requests seriously.

Now Cuffay actually ends up being arrested when he's part of a plot to try to set fire to a major building in London.

And the reason he got arrested was because there were police spies trying to find out what he was up to.

So there's a police spy who's pretending to be a Chartist and they told the rest of the police what he is doing, and then he got arrested before he carried out his attack on this building.

Now, Cuffay was not the only Chartist to be spied on and arrested.

And in fact, by 1848, it looked like Chartism had failed.

Now two key reasons for that.

Parliament was ignoring everything that the Chartists were asking for.

Every time the chart has presented a petition.

Parliament ignored it.

But the other key reason was the police spying.

The police were watching loads and loads of Chartists and trying to work out what they were doing.

And they then would arrest Chartist leaders.

Now it wasn't just Cuffay It was also peaceful Chartists, leaders like Lovett got arrested.

Now the police spies also meant whenever the Chartists tried to carry out a demonstration or march, the police were often there and used violence to crush it.

So it meant that all the chartists demonstrations weren't really working.

Right, let's recap why Chartism fail by 1848.

So this is a useful diagram which I think illustrates it quite nicely.

So firstly, parliament was ignoring the Chartists, petitions.

Secondly, the Chartists were divided over methods that people like Lovett thought they could try to get the vote through persuasion, and people like Cuffay he thought that physical violence might be necessary.

And the police spies were disrupting Chartists activities, which meant by 1848 the national campaign of the Chartists trying to get the vote had failed.

Right, I think is a really useful diagram.

So I'm going to ask you to put in your notes.

But annoyingly, I'm going to remove some of the words.

So it's been more of a test of your memory.

So have a go trying to copy this out now, if you really can't remember what the words are, then once you've written out most diagram, unpause the video and I'll go through a complete version.

So the pause video now, once you copy this out, please.

Right.

Welcome back.

So, parliament ignored all Chartists petitions, the Chartists were divided over methods, and police spies disrupted Chartists activities.

After 1848, the national campaign ends.

Right, now, this is not the end of the story.

Working class did still get the vote.

So how did this happen? Interestingly, what happened next was the working class people tried to change their lives in their local communities.

Now there are loads of different stories we could tell let's not illustrate this, but when my favourite one happened in a town of Rochdale.

Now the events in this building on a street called Toad Lane actually changed history.

And in many ways, this looks like a very normal shop.

But in it worked a working class boy, a work class man called Billy Cooper.

Now, whenever anyone bought anything in the shop, Billy Cooper wrote down what they bought and who they were.

So why is did he do this? Well, this wasn't a normal shop.

Instead, it was a shop that was owned by the poor workers of Rochdale.

They put their money together to try and buy it and they wanted to run it for the community and the shop aim to provide affordable food to workers who were living in poverty.

Then any profits that are made from the store are then shared by the workers of Rochdale.

So what Billy Cooper was doing, he was making a record to know who had bought what so to find out who deserve what money when the profits were shared.

And we call this type of business a cooperative.

So a cooperative is a type of business where the profits are shared between everyone who uses it.

So pause the video now as you write down that definition that you can put that in brackets below, but it's not needed, it just gives you a bit more information.

Unpause the video when you're done.

Welcome back.

Now, cooperatives changed the experience of working class people across Britain.

They made life more bearable because work class people could afford basic things.

But also the cooperative movement showed how skillful the working class were at working together and sorting out problems. Now this became crucial because once they could work and problems, they could get the vote.

Right now you're in a really good position for you to have a go on answering some comprehension questions.

So one can ask you to do shortly is pause the video, go to the next page and read through the worksheet slides.

Before hand I'm just going to read out the questions, make sure they're really clear.

So what documents did the Chartists try to take to Parliament? Two, many working class people felt betrayed in 1832.

Who do they think had betrayed them? What was the central request of the People's Charter? Four, why did the police spy on the Chartists? Five, how did the cooperative movement help working class people win the right to vote? You'll find the answers to those questions in the reading.

So I'm going to ask you to pause video now.

Have a good answer to those questions in full sentences, and then return the video to check your answers when you're done.

Welcome back.

So question one.

What documents did the Chartists try to take to Parliament? Acceptable answer is petitions, a good answer in full sentence is, the documents the Chartists took to Parliament were called petitions.

Now, if you didn't get right, just check here and then you can copy out my answer to give you the right one.

If you didn't get the exact wording you might still deserve tick wording if you've got similar words then give yourself a tick.

Question two, many working class people felt betrayed in 1832.

Who do you think had betrayed them? Acceptable answer, the middle class or if you want to use another term for the bourgeoisie, a good answer.

Many people from the working class got betrayed by the middle class after the 1832 Reform Act.

Before 1832 people from the two classes had worked together to win the vote.

But after 1832 it seemed like the middle class did not care if the franchise was extended.

Question three.

What was the central request of the People's Charter? Acceptable answer is, the vote, or expand the franchise.

A good answer in a full sentence.

The central request of the People's Charter was for all adult men to get the right to vote in elections.

The Charter wanted the franchise to include men from the working class.

Question four, why did the police spy on the Chartists? Acceptable answer could be fear or stop revolution.

A good answer and a full sentence.

The police spied on the Chartists because Britain's rulers feared a working class revolution.

Police spies allowed the government to be prepared for any demonstrations.

Question five, how did the cooperative movement help working class people win the right to vote? Acceptable answer could be, showed workers were organised.

A good answer, the corporative movement showed that people from the working class were organised and could sort out their own problems. Britain's rulers felt under pressure to give such respectable and hardworking people the vote.

Okay, really well done for your hard work today.

We've learned a really interesting story today.

And it's been great telling it to you.

Now, if you're running out of time, I suggest you stop the video.

At this point.

If you have a bit of extra time, I'd quite like for you to have a go at extension activity.

Now the extension activity is in two parts.

Now the first part is the question that we're going to talk through.

But the other part is, I would love it if you could do some research into the Chartists.

Now I've only told a few stories.

But there are charter stories all across the country, and you research the Chartists in your local area.

You'll be able to find out about local Chartists who tried to change things where you live.

So let's have a think about this question.

Why do Chartists want MPs to be paid? So here we can see the six key points of the People's Charter.

Now, we can see in the original source, but I've also put it into some modern day language as well.

Now, most of these points seem kind of obvious why the Chartists would want the right to vote, they want a better vote.

votes should be secret, but that means that no one else can force you to vote for someone else because you can make your own personal choice.

You don't need to be rich to be an MP.

That seems like a sensible suggestion too.

MPs should be paid.

We'll come back to that one.

Voting areas, which are the fancy name that's constituencies should be the same size, which means that elections are fairer, and elections should happen every year.

So that way, if people change their mind, they can change who represents them in Parliament.

Now, I want us to think about this fourth one, MPs should be paid and let's think about why the chartists might have wanted that to happen.

Now, before we actually think about that, it's worth pointing out something.

Eventually the Chartists were completely successful.

Each of these points, point one to five.

All have happened.

So in modern Britain, points one to five are true.

And any one which was not achieved was six, elections every year.

So although the official Chartists movement failed by 1848, the eventual chartists aims were achieved.

Right, let's think a bit about four now, MPs should be paid.

Why would the Chartists want that? Now, the reason why the Chartists wanted that was because they wanted working class people to get the vote, but they also wanted working class people to be able to be MPs and represent their communities in Parliament.

Now, the key thing to focus on is that they are working class which means that workers have to work themselves.

They can't afford to be members of parliament unless they're earning wages in their factories.

So what the Chartists wanted was to make sure that members of parliament got paid a salary, so they didn't need to do another job at the same time.

And that meant that poor working class people would be able to represent their communities in Parliament.

Right.

Now, it's time for you to have a go to answer this question.

Why did Chartists want MPs to be paid? So I put sentence starters or caption starters in the box, and it's your key words that be really useful if you use them to make your answer really full.

So have a go at doing that.

And once you finish, it'd be great if you could share that with your class teacher by over sending it to them or taking a picture and sending it to them so they can see what brilliant work you're doing.

Okay, fantastic work today, and look forward to seeing for our next lessons.

Once you finish the video, please have a go at the final lesson quiz.

And then your lesson is done.