ABSTRACT
Henry Hetherington was a radical printer and leading Chartist. The son of a London tailor, he was apprenticed to Luke Hansard, the British Parliament’s official printer. After becoming acquainted with Robert Owen’s writings in the early 1820s, Hetherington joined the Co-operative Printers Association and was also a member of George Mudie’s Co-operative and Economical Society. From 1822 onwards, he edited a number of radical publications, most notably the Poor Man’s Guardian, in which he voiced his support for parliamentary reform. In 1836, after the Great Reform Act had failed to extend the franchise to labouring men, he formed the London’s Working Men Association with William Lovett, James Watson and John Cleave, and co-wrote the People’s Charter. In his article, published at the height of the Reform Act debate, Henry Hetherington expressed his frustration at Owen’s dismissal of working-political activism. This text epitomises the ambivalence that many socialists felt towards Owen.
