ABSTRACT
Chartism is one of the most intensively researched episodes in modern English history. John Gast was prominent among those London trade unionists that unequivocally supported the Chartist movement. Daniel O'Connell's charismatic espousal of Roman Catholic emancipation and Irish home rule made him one of the great figures, not only of Irish but of British politics in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. The root cause of the failure of the far more serious mass strike of 1842 lay, when the Chartists failed to solve the problems that were contingent on rejection by Parliament of their peaceable demand for political reform. The relationship between trade unionism and Chartism was inevitably affected by the polarization of leadership and opinion from this early stage. The legal security of trade unionism was illusory: Parliament acted in the economic interests of those who elected it and would not tolerate a strong labour movement for long.
