Abstract
Chartism was the most important popular mass movement of the 19th century and aimed at ending working-class misery by gaining political rights. These political aims were specified in the 1838 People's Charter from which the movement takes its name. Three petitions were brought to the Parliament in 1838, 1842 and 1848 but failed. In fact, if the petition of 1842 managed to get 3,3 million signatures, according to John Carlton, "by the end of 1848, Chartism as a mass movement capable of mobilizing tens of thousands people was dead" and the organisation of Chartism faded out in the 1850s. The fact that the contemporary historian Gammade wrote the history of Chartism in 1854 shows that at this time, Chartism was almost already a thing of the past. Thus, it is legitimate to wonder what has led to this sudden decline.
To explain it, early historiography focused especially on the division within the movement, and historians like Gammage emphasized a lot the rivalries between the leading personalities . Moreover, many historians have left aside for long the issue of the late Chartism and the reasons of the decline . This is partly linked t a problem of chronology: for some historians like Stedman Jones, the cut-off point was 1842 (in spite of the revival of 1848) while for other it is the failure of 1848 or the divisions of the 1850s.
