However, even the Government of Lord Melbourne quailed at the thought of what might happen should the punishment be carried out and, on February 1 1840, the sentences were commuted to transportation.
Even before this, there had been more talk of an uprising, particularly in Yorkshire. However, attempts to stir workers to action failed in Sheffield, Dewsbury and Bradford while O'Connor, listening to his head rather than his heart, refused to lead a general revolt.
As Chartist fervour began to fade in the spring of 1840, the authorities saw their chance, moving in to arrest and imprison large numbers of leaders, including O'Connor.
There was a revival of Chartist activity in 1841 after O'Connor was released from York gaol, and a new Convention and a fresh petition were organised. The petition claimed 3.3 million signatures but was rejected as lightly as the first when it was handed over in May 1842.
Claims that the Chartists were behind the Plug Plot strikes in August don't hold much water. Chartists, in fact, were taken by surprise by the strikes, even though, in many places, their own members were directly involved. But once they were under way, Chartism quickly took a hand and gave its official backing.
The high point of Chartism had already passed, however, and as the strike disentegrated the movement's leaders began to look for new outlets for their energies. Fragmentation followed, with such bizarre concepts as Temperance Chartism and Christian Chartism emerging.
There was to be one final outburst of Chartist activity, and that followed O'Connor's election to Parliament as the first - and only - Chartist MP in 1847. All Europe was in revolutionary ferment at this time, and a new downturn in the British economy in 1848 was the signal for action.
A huge mob roamed the streets of London for three days, threatening Buckingham Palace. In Manchester, police fought a pitched battle with a a massive crowd as they tried to storm the hated workhouse, then rampaged about the city for three days, fighting the law wherever they could find it.
Chartism was reborn as crowds packed meetings all over the country, and when a new petition was launched, thousands fought to sign it.
KENNINGTON OVAL meeting in London, from the Illustrated London News.Matters came to a head in April when, once again, Chartist leadership and conviction were found wanting. The plan was for a huge meeting on Kennington Common in South London to precede a march on Parliament, where the petition, said by O'Connor to contain more than five million signatures, was to be presented.
Alarmed, the police banned the procession and called up thousands of specials. The military prepared to intervene if the Chartists attempted to cross the Thames bridges - but it was all unnecessary. O'Connor told the crowd to disperse and the petition travelled to Parliament alone in three taxi cabs. By early afternoon Queen Victoria, who had fled the capital for Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, was informed that the crisis had evaporated.
Part of the original plan had been to launch an elected National Assembly if the petition failed. This would call on the Queen to dissolve Parliament and would sit until the Charter became law.
The assembly gathered on May 1st, but as the country seethed - rioters clashed with police in Bradford, workers drilled on the Yorkshire Moors and 80,000 Londoners marched silently through the streets of the capital - the Chartists talked, dithered, and got nowhere. Finally, the assembly dissolved itself, claiming it did not have enough mass support. Chartism was dead.
