Note 138 — Ernest Jones and Chartism 1838–1854

“The ministers had met the Chartist outbreaks with strong, repressive measures, and here they had the concurrence of parliament, which had no sympathy with the movement. The House of Commons, indeed, had little understanding of the processes that were maturing outside its walls. The industrial and the social evolution went on almost unnoticed by statesmen and politicians absorbed in the party controversy.”—Sidney Low and Lloyd Sanders, Political History of England, 1837–1901. See also Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates for these years.