ABSTRACT
Joseph Raynor Stephens, the apostle of revolt and the only Chartist who at one time vied with O’Connor in popularity, was born on the 18th of March, 1805, at Edinburgh, where his father was a Methodist preacher. He made the best of his elementary education when yet quite young. For some time the idol of the masses, Stephens, lost his influence as soon as his criticism of the Chartist demands became pronounced. It was his heresy in politics that drove him to the Chartists and it was the same heresy that barred him from their ranks. George Julian Harney, unlike Stephens, devoted his ubiquitous activity to the exclusive agitation for the Charter. He was but twenty years of age when he plunged into the tempestuous sea of the Chartist movement. Stephens dwelt little on the political aspects of the Charter.
