Radical Ballad: The Chartist Anthem

This is another folksong from Joan Mills and Michael Raven’s collection of radical 19th century protest ballads from the West Midlands, sung and recorded by the folk group Saga, and published as part of an album to accompany the folksong collection of the same name, The Jolly Machine, edited by Michael Raven. The Chartists were a radical working and lower middle class movement demanding democracy, calling for votes for all working men, equal electoral districts, annual parliaments and the payment of MPs, amongst others. Some historians have seen them as an early counterpart to the Labour party. Others have pointed out that it was broader movement, with some Chartists supporting free trade rather than socialism. At its height, some of the very radical Chartists called for the abolition of parliament and its replacement by a House of Trades, in which some thing like the TUC would govern Britain. It’s utopian, but it would have been far better than the situation today when, a few years ago, it was estimated that 77 per cent of MPs are millionaires, managing directors, CEOs and senior staff. While the poor, the working class and their champions have been forced out of politics by middle class Thatherites ingratiating themselves with the elite.

Here’s the sheet music.

The short description of the ballad on page 24 states:

‘The Social and political discontent of the early 19th century led to the Chartist movement. The aims of their six points were political but it was hope that universal suffrage and other political reforms would result in great social equality. The Chartists were active in the Potteries and the movement’s song “The Chartists’ Anthem” achieved a wide popularity. It is presented here to the tune “Johnny O’Breadislie”.

Radical Ballad from the West Midlands: Freedom and Reform

This comes from the Joan Mills channel on YouTube, and comes from a companion record by Mills and Michael Raven to a selection of radical 19th century protest songs from the West Midlands, edited by Michael Raven and with the same title, The Jolly Machine (Michael Raven 1974, 2nd edition 1991). The notes to the tune on page 25 says that the song comes from a 19th century broadside printed by W.S. Foretey of Birmingham. ‘It is a general plea for support of the Liberal movement and its champions, Gladstone, Beale and Bright. Such please played their part in rousing public opinion among the working classes in the days when newspapers were both in their infancy and comparatively expensive. The last years of the 19th century saw many reforms particularly in the fields of electoral franchise and education’.

The song demands full manhood suffrage, urges support for the Liberals and Gladstone as the true friends of working men, and state very clearly that the ‘Tories keep you down’. Which they do, although I would extend this to all the mainstream parties, including Labour, and Reform and their competitors on the anti-immigration right.

Here’s the book cover:

This is the broadsheet.

And this is the sheet music