Women, Late Chartism, and the Land Plan in Nottinghamshire

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between working-class women and Chartism, focusing chiefly on Nottingham. It argues that the opportunities for women to participate in the movement were much more varied and enduring than previous historians have often supposed. One of the reasons why women were so prominent by the time of Chartism in the 1840s was because of a tradition of political participation. Even by the period of late Chartism (post-1842), women were still participating in popular politics, and nowhere more so than in the Land Plan, a scheme to resettle urban workers on the land. Drawing on a database of some 2,300 Nottinghamshire members of the Land Plan, the evidence suggests that the region’s women were more likely to join, and on their own volition, have their own jobs and possess a degree of independence that was not the case elsewhere.


Introduction
The Nottingham region was a stronghold of Chartism, the mass movement for parliamentary reform, democracy and social rights, which swept across the manufacturing districts from the late 1830s to the early 1850s.Nottingham was the only constituency to elect a Chartist MP (in 1847), the fiery and hugely adored Irishman, Feargus O'Connor, the widely recognized national leader of the movement.Chartism was particularly attraction to the region's textile workers, the framework knitters who, alongside lace workers, artisans and other workers, saw in it a vehicle for redressing their poverty and exploitation.From the early days of the movement women had played a prominent part, forming their own body, the Nottingham Female Political Union (hereafter NFPU).But as the 1840s progressed, women, it has been argued, disappeared from Chartism, a trend not only evident in Nottingham but across the nation.According to this argument, the diminishing number of opportunities that existed increasingly boxed women into playing only an auxiliary role, supporting their menfolk, rather than advancing their own (feminist) agenda.Further, those historians who have argued for this masculinization of popular politics have invariably laid the blame for this at the hands of working-class men, in particular artisans who have been presented as either misogynistic or chivalric.Either way, the goal and effect were generally the same: to exclude women from should be noted that the number of Nottinghamshire shareholders is much higher than previously assumed, even after duplications have been removed (the duplication rate was only 1%, though this is likely to be an underestimation). 8The total number of shareholders was not c.2,500 but in excess of 4,000.9It proved possible to trace 142 of the 243 women on the census, the largest sample and record linkage to date of female members of the Land Plan. 10 While there are problems in using this data (discussed below), with some of the evidence suggestive rather than conclusive, Nottinghamshire women were more likely to join than women elsewhere, have their own jobs and possess a degree of independence that may have been unusual. 11Thus, the article challenges the view put forward by previous historians of Chartism that the Land Plan confirmed women's status in the movement as 'limited and auxiliary'. 12hartism and the Land Plan in particular were notably attractive to Nottinghamshire's female textile workers, especially those employed in lace.As James Epstein has observed, 'An exceptionally high proportion of Nottingham's female population was employed', and this, in part, explains the strength of female Chartism. 13Yet this factor on its own cannot fully explain this popularity; there were comparable levels of female employment elsewhere, including the east midlands, but low levels of female participation in Chartism and the Land Plan.Although the focus is on Nottinghamshire female shareholders, the article also provides some of the first, sustained comparative analysis of other regions.One final note of delimitation: this article focuses chiefly on Nottingham, including the surrounding villages which fall within the present-day city boundaries, but there will be occasional sideway glances to Mansfield, Newark, Retford, and Sutton-in-Ashfield.This is a geography largely dictated by the availability of source material, itself a reflection of where much Chartist activity took place, though as we shall see, the Land Plan had some capacity to reach beyond the movement's large urban strongholds.

Women, Protest and Politics: A Tradition in the Making
By the early nineteenth century, plebeian women were active participants in protest and politics in Nottingham and the broader region.Plebeian women played a central part in the periodic food riots which occurred between 1795 and 1812. 14Food riots were a venerable form of popular protest, and plebeian women were often to the fore on account of their domestic responsibility for household provisions as well as their position as defenders of the community, though historians have debated the extent to which women dominated food riots across the nation. 15While less common, women also protested in their capacity as producers. 16At the same time as the Luddites were breaking machines, women close to the Nottinghamshire-Leicestershire border employed as lace runners formed a trade union and went on strike for higher wages, and not for the last time: in 1842, female lace runners in Nottingham came out on strike, but without success. 17Far from being evidence of the growing independence of female factory lace hands, lace running was part of the finishing process which took place outside the factory and large machine shops, mainly in the homes of the women. 18hus, the gendered division of labour associated with family-based manufacture was not necessarily inimical to women organizing and protesting (hence the high levels of support for Chartism among Nottingham's women lace workers).Although less prominent, women were also involved in Luddism, though mainly in a supporting role.Depositions reveal that women supplied men with weapons, contributed financially to the campaign, were part of the larger crowds that broke frames, and were even part of the meetings which took place in pubs and inns where Luddism was planned. 19Kinship was important in the formation of Luddite cells, with mothers, wives and daughters acting as the conduits through which the movement spread. 20This is not the last time that we will encounter women in the orbit of physical force protest; it was a tradition, albeit a minority one, that would make itself felt in Nottinghamshire Chartism.
As the 1810s gave way to the 1820s, plebeian women, like most of the men, entered a period of relative political quiescence.Traditional forms of protest, such as machine breaking and food riots went into steep decline, though they still made occasional, often tantalizing appearances, such as support for the wronged Queen Caroline in 1820. 21ith the revival of radicalism and reform in the early 1830s -the heady days of the Reform Bill riots, political unions, and eventual enactment of the Reform Act -Nottingham's plebeian women were conspicuous by their absence, though it seems unconceivable that they were not part of the crowds during this frenetic period of popular politics, not least because they made some of the banners on display at such meetings. 22While none of the accounts of the Reform Bill riots in Nottingham mention women explicitly, the schedule of prisoners at the trial of the rioters included a woman, Elizabeth Hunt, who was indicted for receiving jewellery stolen from Colwick Hall, one of the targets of the rioters. 23It is only in 1834 that plebeian women make their corporate appearance in the shape of the Nottingham Female Union, a body of trade unionists who protested against the harsh sentences handed down to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, again suggestive evidence that women were active as producers and not just consumers. 24These women, who constituted themselves as 'the females of Nottingham and vicinity', sent a petition to the House of Commons protesting against the miscarriage of justice in the conviction of the Dorchester labourers, concluding with the injunction: 'N.B.All Females ought to sign'. 25When the petition was presented in the Commons it contained 2,200 female signatures. 26It is highly probable that many of these women went on to become Chartists, just as many frustrated male trade unionists did.
Plebeian women were also involved in the electoral process.There is no evidence of women actually voting at any elections, something that was technically possible before the 1832 Reform Act formally limited the franchise to 'male persons', but women occasionally voted elsewhere, though involvement was limited to parochial bodies and to women who were single. 27Neither, it seems, were women the conduits for the enfranchisement of men as was the case in some other freemen boroughs, which Nottingham was, where one of the ways in which men could acquire the vote was by marrying a daughter or a widow of a freemen. 28An electoral version of the French Salic law appears to have operated in relation to the freeman franchise in the borough.For all these barriers to the formal participation of women, there exists a considerable body of scholarship which has documented the many ways in which women were able to take part in Georgian and Victorian electoral culture: from canvassing to being canvassed and bribed, to influencing the votes of their menfolk, taking part in processions and demonstrations, forming committees to further the interests of their partisans, petitioning parliament and appearing as witnesses, to name but a few.All of these were pursued by the plebeian women of Nottingham. 29An additional reason why Nottingham's plebeian women were so closely involved in the electoral process may have been because many of their menfolk already had the vote, which may have been viewed -as it was in some middle-class families -as belonging to the whole family. 30By 1847, around a third of adult males in Nottingham were enfranchised, and this included some Chartists: for example, James Sweet had the vote, who was perhaps the most famous of Nottingham's Chartist leaders. 31o political movement could ignore women by the early nineteenth century, for example, women were actively canvassed in Nottinghamshire.32 Canvassing was an important part of the electoral process which candidates ignored at their peril, and from the point of view of women, it was also one of the direct means through which politics was brought into the home as the candidates and their committees did the rounds.33 By the 1840s, women were even more prominent during elections.In part, this was because of popular opposition to the implementation of the New Poor Law, a deeply resented innovation across the nation, but rendered even more acute in Nottingham because of zealous local promoters and officials, and the Tory-Chartist alliance that was forged in opposition to this Whig measure.34 The political temperature was also raised by the quick succession of four parliamentary elections: three by-elections and a general election between April 1841 and May 1843. Whn the Liberal candidates, Sir John Cam Hobhouse and George Larpent, were victorious at the 1841 general election, ejecting the Tory John Walter Snr. who had so recently been elected in the byelection earlier that year, the crowd, and especially the women, made their disgust felt during the victory celebrations.This led to a riot in Sneinton: As parties were returning home from the Chairing . . .several women in Glasshouse street commenced hooting and abusing those wearing yellow ribbons [the Liberal colour], and . . .these women, from the late rain, began to scoop up effluent from the channels in the street and throw it at the Liberals.35 The poor law was particularly unpopular with women, with many turning to protest and exercising their roles as community leaders and voicing their outrage as injured mothers and wives.36 During the elections, the rallying cry of the plebeian women had been 'no skilly', a reference to the woefully inadequate diet metered out to paupers in the new workhouses: 'Wherever the Liberal candidate canvassed', complained the Liberal Nottingham Review, 'they were almost deafened by the women crying out "no skilly;" in short, during the whole of the past two elections that has been the word which has emanated from almost every female belonging to the lower classes'.37 Plebeian women sometimes played important parts in less visible aspects of electioneering.Previous historians have shown that women were sometimes the conduit through which bribes passed, as happened at the Nottingham election of 1843.38 But women could also play a part in bringing the bribers and intimidators to justice.39 It is also possible that women had played another decisive role behind the scenes during these elections in the form of exclusive dealing: the practice whereby electors and nonelectors withheld their custom from shopkeepers who were known political opponents (and vice versa).While no innovation of the 1840s, it appears to have been more systematic and pervasive in this decade -largely at the behest of the Chartists.40 Finding hard evidence of this sort of subtle intimidation is virtually impossible, and while exclusive dealing was far from being the only or even the most important factor in determining the outcome of elections, it may have played a part in Walter's victory in 1841, in Joseph Sturge's near victory in 1842, in Thomas Gisborne's in 1843, and, ultimately, in the election of Feargus O'Connor in 1847.41 Women were undoubtedly involved, for the same reasons why they had played such a prominent part in food riots: they were responsible for much of the shopping, and the politics of consumption was part of their traditional role as guardians of the family and community.From the very beginning of its existence, the NFPU -the organizational expression of early female Chartism -had stressed the importance of exclusive dealing.It formed part of a public address which they published in the press: 'Let every shop and shopkeeper be noted in a book kept for the purpose, stating name, residence, trade and whether Whig or Tory; also another book containing the name of those friendly to the cause of the people'. 42The Chartists also set up a co-operative society, and this too promoted exclusive dealing among women.43 Firmer evidence is furnished by O'Connor's instruction to the Nottingham Chartists to instigate exclusive dealing during the 1847 election campaign, and, firmer still, his claim that local shopkeepers had complained about this instruction, presumably because some had lost trade or felt intimidated into acquiescence.This was always a possibility given the publication of poll books in the aftermath of elections, which detailed how every elector had cast their votes, a form of transparency that the Nottingham Chartists were willing to avail themselves of when it suited, despite the movement's demand for the secret ballot.44

Rethinking Women and Chartism
The previous section has shown how in the period preceding and paralleling Chartism, plebeian women played an important, albeit oftentimes, submerged role in popular politics and protest.The beginning of the Chartist movement in the late 1830s would see plebeian women in Nottingham and beyond build on this tradition to become an even more assertive and independent political presence.Chartism in Nottingham has received quite a lot of attention from historians.We know about the character and fortunes of Chartism in the region from the outbreak of arming and drilling in the heady summer of 1839 to the 'Battle of Mapperley Hill' in the equally turbulent summer of 1842.The reasons why the framework knitters flocked to the movement have also been explored, as has the organizational and cultural aspects of the Chartist experience, including the role of women and the gender politics of the NFPU. 45Much less is known about late Chartism (the period after 1842) or the place of women within the movement.Previous research has established that women played a prominent part in Nottingham Chartism: they had their own organization, the NFPU, complete with their own leaders, lecturers, and teachers, and similar bodies existed at Sutton-in-Ashfield and possibly Arnold and Hucknall.Women were able to use the Democratic Chapel, a dedicated Chartist building in Barker Gate; women were part of the Chartist crowd, at outdoor meetings on the Forest, or formed part of the processions to welcome leaders such as O'Connor when they visited the town; and they collected money to support the wives and families of imprisoned male Chartists.Despite some important caveats, previous historians are largely in agreement that most women participating in the movement did so as wives, sisters or daughters of male Chartists and saw their role as auxiliaries to help their menfolk, and that they had largely ceased to be an active presence in late Chartism. 46here are some important clues in early Chartism which cast doubt on these arguments.The first is the speed with which the NFPU was established in the autumn of 1838, one of the earliest in the country.One of the reasons why Nottingham Chartist women were so quick off the mark was because of the aforementioned tradition of political participation and protest, most recently in mobilizing against the New Poor Law, hence the centrality of the latter to the early meetings of the NFPU and the broader movement. 47The Chartists of Mansfield also singled out opposition to the New Poor Law, highlighting the way in which it broke up families even before entry into the segregated workhouse: to forestall the latter, families were dividing and lodging where they could. 48Second, there is nothing in the published words of the NFPU that explicitly limited their demands to manhood suffrage.It is not just the case that some of the arguments that they made -no taxation without representation -might also apply to women 49 ; more importantly, there is no explicit declaration in favour of manhood suffrage.The most that we can say is that the evidence is inconclusive whether the NFPU were advancing a proto-feminist agenda; certainly, they discussed the issue of women's rights in a later lecture, though unfortunately we do not know what was said. 50Further, implicit in the appeal to women in the opening address of the NFPU was a recognition that they too were workers: 'our industry . . . the fruits and sweets of which are dashed from our lips'.This is an important recognition that had implications for women in later Chartism, especially the Land Plan.The address was also empowering: 'Sisters and women of England, much is yet in your power, to aid the great and holy cause'. 51The address left open the possibility of women taking up arms.
This militant message was, it seems, taken to heart by at least one female Chartist from the region.Known female physical force Chartists are a historical rarity, and not just in Nottingham, but Elizabeth Cresswell of Mansfield enjoys that distinction.Cresswell was indicted along with a group of male Chartists from Mansfield who drilled and marched through the streets towards Nottingham in the summer of 1839, brandishing weapons.She was forty-three at the time of her indictment; hardly a youthful girl led astray by dubious company. 52According to one hostile witness at her trial in Nottingham, Cresswell had been seen marching in the streets with the men which was 'calculate [d] to cause great terror to the inhabitants of Mansfield'. 53After the crowd had been dispersed, she was then seen in the Black Swan pub, where she was subsequently apprehended.A loaded pistol was taken from her, which, she claimed, to be hiding for the landlord who had asked her to hide it, which she did in her dress.Another hostile witness at the trial alleged that Cresswell had actively recruited men to the marching party.Had she not been found with the pistol, Cresswell would have been released on her own recognizances. 54She was convicted for unlawful and riotous assembly, imprisoned for one month in the House of Correction, though unlike her fellow male convicts her sentence was much shorter and she was not bound over to keep the peace upon her liberation. 55According to the reporter for the Nottingham Review, Cresswell was known to the authorities as a 'bad character', and it may not be a coincidence that a Sarah Cresswell of Mansfield had two other brushes with the law, including court appearances, one for damage to property and another for riot, though it is possible that this is a different person. 56hile it is unusual to find a female Chartist on trial, much less one who, at least potentially, had physical force inclinations, it is highly unlikely that she was the only woman in the Chartist crowd on this occasion.The support of women in the villages and towns around Nottingham was particularly important: in 1839 the Chartists of Mansfield informed the Convention -the national, co-ordinating body of the movement -that the number of females in their district was 'far above the number of males', many of whom were employed as winders and seamers in the stocking trade. 57imilarly, because of the employment opportunities in knitting and lace, Nottingham itself 'had an unusually high proportion of females'. 58This brings us to another problem with the argument that, as Chartism advanced, women disappeared.Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.By the time that Chartism was a decade old in 1848, the presence of women was no longer that remarkable, and it is inconceivable that no women were present at meetings, especially outdoor ones such as the Methodist-style camp meetings that were held on the Forest and the large gatherings in the market place.In any case, a careful combing of the local and Chartist press shows that women continued to be a presence into the late 1840s and beyond.So far as is known, the NFPU does appear to have lapsed and no successor body was set up in its wake.Yet women were active.Historians have noted that a group of Nottingham women were nominated to represent the town on the body of the National Charter Association (the new co-ordinating body of the movement from 1840), but what has largely escaped attention is how unique this was: no women from any other locality nominated members of their own sex to represent them, and this occurred in spring 1843, that is, during the period when women were allegedly being excluded from the movement. 59Neither was this a one-off, as a second, slightly different set of names were nominated later in 1843, which occurred at exactly the same time that members of the NFPU were debating the issue of women's rights. 60Whether the national leaders upheld the nominations is unclear but arguably, is less significant than the fact that the women of Nottingham put themselves forward, and, perhaps more significantly, believed that it was necessary to represent their own sex.It is also suggestive that the Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star, published these slates of names.Chartist women were still sufficiently organized as late as 1847 to form a society called 'The Nottingham Importation Society' for the purpose of importing flour and other provisions from the USA, another co-operative move that politicized consumption and the role of women as providers.Tellingly, the society met at the newsagent and coffee house of Mrs Smith (Mary Ann Smith, to be precise, and soon to be Mrs Rollett, following the death of her first husband and her marriage to Elmer Rollett, a fellow Chartist). 61Similar co-operative ventures were also in existence at Arnold, Carrington and Radford. 62Women were present at the festival held to celebrate O'Connor's election in November 1847, just as they were at a democratic soiree in July 1853.Outside the formal bounds of Chartism, women also formed their own friendly societies and played a part in the bitter strike organized by framework knitters in 1849.Some Chartist male knitters had long recognized the important role played by women in the trade, and supported their admission into the knitters' unions. 63When the Newport Chartist rebel John Frost, recently repatriated, visited Nottingham in 1856, Chartist women were present in the audience. 64By this time Chartism was no longer a mass movement, and in steep decline, which is, perhaps, the real reason why it was no longer a viable vehicle for women's rights.Even the revival of 1848 was only a partial one, and the movement was nowhere near the former strength exhibited in 1839 or 1842. 65Women in attendance at meetings was not the same as forming their own bodies and potentially advancing a feminist agenda, but they did not disappear from politics and protest from the later 1840s onwards.The fullest evidence of this is in the Chartist Land Plan.

'Wilt Thou Join the Land plan?'
The Land Plan was set up in May 1845 and was the brainchild of Feargus O'Connor, though it emerged from a longstanding radical preoccupation with the land and the people's dispossession of it. 66It was a scheme designed to resettle urban workers on smallholdings.Workers subscribed, many by weekly instalments, eventually becoming a full shareholder: one share entitled the holder to enter a ballot for a two-acre holding (subsequently raised to two shares), one and a half shares for three acres (raised to three), and two shares for four acres (raised to four shares).These shares also entitled the holder to a cottage and a monetary advance (the amount dependent on the acreage of the smallholding).The allocation was by periodic ballot: once the company had amassed sufficient capital, an estate was purchased, plots laid out and cottages built, a lottery would be held, in which paid up subscribers were entered into the requisite ballot.Those who were successful could then take up residence -not, in the first instance, as owner-occupiers, but as lessees who were required to pay rent (to raise capital and borrow against for the purchase of future estates for other subscribers).Lessees then had the option to buy the allotment on favourable terms and become a freeholder, and thereby eligible for the franchise, which was another purpose of the scheme.A single share cost £1 6s, though it was possible to pay in instalments, initially of threepence, sixpence or a shilling, as one would expect of a movement with democratic goals and working-class membership. 67In total, five estates were purchased: Herringsgate (or Heronsgate) in Hertfordshire (renamed O'Connorville), Minster Lovell in Oxfordshire (Charterville), Lowbands and Snigs End in Gloucestershire (originally in Worcestershire), and Great Dodford in Worcestershire.
Clearly, a lottery scheme that held out the possibility of winning a cottage and some land, must have appealed to some who were not Chartists, or at least had not been until the Land Plan came along.Yet it would be a mistake to assume that the Plan was not integral to Chartism.After 1845, Chartism proper and the Land Plan were intertwined 63  and local branches of the latter became the de facto organizational expression of Chartism in some places.Further, as Malcolm Chase has argued, the difficulties in securing legal recognition of the Plan, with the political connection to Chartism being cited as one of the reasons for its illegality, meant that taking out a subscription 'became a political act in itself, a gesture of defiance in the face of class legislation and government hostility, and a vote of confidence in O'Connor's leadership'. 68he Land Plan was hugely popular in the Nottingham region, not just because it was an O'Connorite stronghold, but also on account of a keen desire for land amongst the region's working classes, especially keen in Nottingham where the absence of any significant enclosure meant overcrowding, poor back-to-back housing and limited access to land, at least for the majority who were not burgesses (the latter had access to some common land). 69Perhaps because a Nottingham architect won the commission for the design of the quatrefoil ventilator on the cottages, that one of the roads at Heronsgate was named 'Nottingham Road', and that some of the early ballot winners were from Nottinghamshire, helped to stoke local interest.It may not have escaped the attention of the region's women that one of the first winners for a plot at Heronsgate was a woman, Barbara Vaughan (though she was not from Nottinghamshire). 70or a town that was widely acknowledged to be one of the most over-crowded in the country the arcadian vision held out by the Land Plan must have seemed like an Elysium.Beyond the town, in the knitting villages enclosure had taken place, but the effect had been to deprive many knitters from access to land.In any case, the falling wages of the knitters necessitated working longer hours which left little time for cultivation, though some allotment societies and other schemes had tried to redress this in some of the villages but not always effectively. 71Nearly two years before the Land Company was established, the Chartists of Lambley had promoted allotments, albeit 'upon a very small scale indeed'.They had 'found the good effects of the allotment system' on as little as a quarter of an acre.Chartists at Hucknall had also formed a similar association to promote allotments. 72While the quality of housing tended to be better in the villages -much better in some cases -the attraction held out by the spacious and well-built cottages of the Land Plan was great. 73Indeed, the houses on the first estate at O'Connorville were deemed to be so palatial that subsequent estates opted for the more enduringly iconic bungalow.Even so, these cottages were designed to ease domestic labour by integrating under one roof various conveniences, and in ways that promoted cleanliness as well as accessibility: a range in the kitchen, a dresser, tiled floors, drainage, running water, the means to heat water, the possibility of a kitchen garden, a fuel store, and a privy.Whether these were designed to entrench conventional gender roles or not, they were undoubtedly labour saving.Small wonder, as one contemporary observer noted, that 'the women, if possible, appeared still more overjoyed than the men' when they first laid eyes on their new homes. 74One woman, Elizabeth Tawes, told O'Connor that she would not return to Nottingham for any money as she proudly showed him how happy and healthy her family were since moving to Heronsgate. 75The Taweses had been rescued from Radford workhouse.Elizabeth's husband, Charles, was the only male subscriber from Nottinghamshire who listed the workhouse as his address. 76hat made matters worse in the villages and suburbs -in places such as Radford, the original home of the Tawes family, and in Arnold and Basford -was that the people were more reliant on framework knitting than was the case in Nottingham where, at least in theory, other occupations could be pursued.Even in Sutton-in-Ashfield, with its population of 6,300, one local Chartist estimated that 4,500 people were directly dependent on the manufacture of cotton hose and 'perhaps about 1,000 dependent on the same branch of business in an indirect manner'. 77The attraction of a scheme to impoverished workers that held out the possibility of feeding themselves is understandable.The Chartists from Sutton-in-Ashfield informed the General Convention, the co-ordinating national body in 1839, that many knitters were earning as little as 6-7s a week, many had no beds or coverings, and there were 'hundreds who have not a morsel to satisfy the cravings of hunger'. 78Their neighbours in Mansfield fared little better as many knitters were forced to live off turnips, though some knitters did have access to an acre or two on the Forrest. 79To make matters worse, payment in truck was common in the villages, and there was a steady stream of prosecutions for short weights and measures, two infractions that would have been particularly resented by women who took charge of the purchase and provision of food. 80he Land Plan ultimately failed to deliver what it had promised.Only 250 of the c.42,000 shareholders were settled on one of the estates before the company was wound up by an act of parliament in 1851.The overwhelming response was part of the problem, so popular was the scheme that the numbers taking out shares meant that it would take many years for all shareholders to win an allotment.The failure to secure legal status, internal problems relating to the finance and running of the Land 74 Not all of these amenities were provided on every estate, at least not immediately and in some cases never.
For Company, in particular the inability of the allottees to pay rent, and legal and practical problems encountered by the winning allottees who took up residence on one of the estates, each played a part. 81However, a great deal of time was devoted by the Chartists and other reformers to self-help, including horticulture, which lived on and flowered in the mid-Victorian freehold land movement and the self-help associational culture, including in Nottingham. 82A mutual assistance society was set up, with James Sweet as sub-treasurer, to help local Chartists who won allotments with initial expenses. 83The overwhelming response to the Land Plan happened during a period when self-help was also growing in popularity, 84 and it undoubtedly played a part in reviving the fortunes of Chartism. 85With some 600 branches across the nation, the Land Plan kept Chartism alive at a local level in the lean mid-1840s and beyond 1848.Nottingham was one of the most enthusiastic centres of support. 86As late as 1849, the Chartists of Skegby, a semirural knitting village on the outskirts of Sutton-in-Ashfield, mustered 11s 6d. in the week ending 12 April towards shares in the Land Company, whereas the total for Nottingham was only a few shillings more that week. 87The scheme also extended Chartism into new areas in which very little organization existed: only an individual subscription was required; members came from Newark and Retford (nine and five women, respectively). 88It may also have lent itself to independent-minded women who were reluctant to participate in politics in more visibly assertive ways.There were a number of winners from Nottingham, including four women: Martha Sweet, wife of James Sweet, and one of the women who was nominated to serve on the NCA; Ellen Houghton (seamstress), Sarah Clark (pipe maker), Sarah Fletcher (straw bonnet maker), and Maria Merryman (a lace runner), though it would appear that none took up residence, perhaps because plots had been unavailable or, as seems more likely, because of the unfavourable reports which had begun to circulate about the harsh and unstable conditions on the new estates. 89None of these names appear in the 1851 census as residents in the cottages on the sites of former Land Plan settlements, though we know that others had already cut their losses and left before the census date, the Taweses included. 90hat do we learn about the women from the Nottingham region who took out shares, and how does this compare with elsewhere?The region's women were more likely to join, and on their own volition, have their own jobs and possess a degree of independence than was the case elsewhere.Six findings from the data support this conclusion.First, almost without exception, they were working class: even the small minority who were listed as 'no trade', 'widow', or independent on the census, lived in households that were working-class, broadly defined.Second, most women had jobs.Only 23 of the 243 women were listed as having no occupation (or 9.5%), a figure which includes seven minors and seven widows (Table 1), whereas in the West Riding and Lancashire the figure was 48%, and across the nation, 34%.If we subtract from these figures those who were non-wage earners (minors, paupers, aged widows), 204 women or 84% were in employment; compared with a national figure of 51%. 91The record linkage between the shareholders index and the census confirms that the latter, especially the 1841 census, often fails to capture female employment, in particular of married women: forty-five women who declared an occupation on the shareholder's register are listed as having no employment on the census, though both the census and the shareholders register provide only a snapshot at a certain asynchronous point, and in the case of the census it has not always been possible to locate the women on either the 1841 or 1851 censuses. 92Third, the proportion of female membership in Nottinghamshire was higher: nationally, women made up 4% of the Land Plan's subscribers, in Nottinghamshire, the figure was 11% -not dramatically higher, but nearly three times larger.Fourth, the vast majority of employed women were textile workers: 38% (or 45% of those in employment), higher than in the other two main textile and Chartist strongholds of Lancashire and the West Riding where only 21% were textile workers.The proportion involved in the production of clothing, as dressmakers and milliners, the second highest form of employment by some distance in Nottinghamshire, was also slightly higher: 19% (or 23% of those employed) compared with 15.5% elsewhere.The numbers of women who were in either domestic service (10%) or retail (4%) was comparable to other regions.
Few women were framework knitters compared to those in lace: 4% of women were knitters and 28% were lace workers, a ratio of 1:9, which reflected the gendered division of labour in knitting where women worked for husbands and fathers.Analysis of the Nottinghamshire male subscribers shows that 30% were knitters.The percentage of male lace hands was, however, much higher than the percentage of women in lace: 24% as against 30% who were knitters, a ratio of 4:5, which further calls into question the argument that male lace workers were a superior class apart, only a small minority of whom (relative to framework knitters) were involved in Chartism.Charles Tawes was a laceworker and had been unemployed before winning an allotment at O'Connorville, as an inmate of Radford Workhouse.Fifth, and perhaps most significantly, was the very high number of women who were, broadly defined, independent by earning their own wages and/or listed as heads of their households on the census.Thirty-three women were recorded as heads of their households, either because they were widowed or unmarried.These figures exclude minors (a classificatory category used on the list of subscribers) and those women of whatever age who were still living with both of their parents.If those women who lived with parents are added but were also contributing to the wages the household, the figure rises to 90 (44% of women in employment), which is comparable to Lancashire. 93However, female subscribers are excluded who it has not been possible to locate on the census, the figure is 70%, which is much higher than elsewhere.Sixth, of the women for whom record linkage proved possible (142 out of 243 names), 63 had children of their own (including in some cases, grandchildren living with them), or 44% of the sample, a much lower number than was the case in Lancashire where most female subscribers were mothers (Schwarzkopf only identified two female subscribers who had no children in her sample of 58).The Nottinghamshire women tended to live in slightly smaller households: 4.7 people compared to the national average of 5.5, ranging in size from 1 to 13, and the average number of children for those women who had families of their own was 2.9. 94The average age of the women was 36, with an age range of 5-71, which was slightly older than the average age of a sample of Chartist men, and may also account for the relatively low number of resident children, as some would have grown up and established their own households. 95Finally, of the 74 women who either lived with their father (37), or were married (37), 54 (or 73%) had artisans for spouses.Perhaps most significant and surprising of all is that only 16% of female subscribers had fathers or husbands who were also members of the Land Plan, which contradicts the assumption that most women who joined did so because the men in their households were also members and wished only to maximize their family's chance of winning in a ballot. 96gainst the background of an assertive presence of women in Nottingham Chartism, the Land Plan can be seen as an expression of a degree of female independence by those women who were heads of households, principal wage earners, widows or unmarried, or even lodgers in other households (a further 14 women). 97Many working-class households in Nottingham included lodgers, a significant proportion of whom were spinsters working in the lace industry. 98These women were not necessarily financially independent, though some were, but more were direct wage contributors to their household economies.Many of these women were older, often heads of households, while those with families had relatively few, or grown-up, children, and thus had the resource to contribute to the Land Plan.Just as we should not assume financial independence, neither should we assume that a measure of independence precludes exploitation.The sizable presence of lace workers, which requires careful explanation, is testimony to this.
On the surface, female lace workers appear to be independent women, in the sense of taking on new employment opportunities, perhaps in some of the factories or large workshops that were beginning to appear where they were no longer beholden to fathers and husbands as they had been in framework knitting.There is some truth in this on two counts.First, only 9 of the 35 women who were listed as lace workers and identified on the census lived with a parent or husband who was also listed as a lace worker, and some women were certainly employed in factories.The Chartists of Mansfield told the Convention in 1839 that some 250 females were factory workers in their district earning on average 5s a week, though tellingly, this compared with some 600 domestic workers. 99Second, there was a much lower rate of female membership in the satellite villages and towns -not those closest to Nottingham, such as Radford, which were, in effect, industrial suburbs of Nottingham, but places further afield, such as Arnold, Kirkby, Sutton-in-Ashfield, places where framework knitting was much more dominant than was the case in Nottingham, and where traditional gendered division of labour prevailed.But once again, we should not push this too far as there were female subscribers who lived in these places, and who were framework knitting families: 19% of female members from Nottinghamshire came from these satellite communities.These caveats aside, most female lace workers were employed in 96 The figure of 16% almost certainly is an under-estimation because it has proved impossible to trace all the female subscribers on the census, and occasionally different addresses appear for husband and wife, perhaps because of a change of address after the husband had taken out shares but before the wife subscribed.This would appear to be the case with Ann Hoe, who won an allotment of four acres in December 1846.Ann is listed as 'Mrs John Hoe' in the Northern Star, and this can only have been the wife of John Hoe, a framework knitter and fellow subscriber who, on the 1851 census, is the only John Hoe listed as a framework knitter with a wife by the name of Ann, though both appear with different addresses in the shareholders register.Northern Star, 19 December 1847. 97In his sample of subscribers from Teesside, Chase concluded that those with shares tended to be younger and were more likely to be lodgers than Chartists generally (though his sample was almost exclusively male).Chase, 'Teesside'. 98Smith, 'Early Victorian Household Structure', p. 82. 99BL, Add MS 34245A, f. 89, General Convention papers, H. Sharman to W. Lovett, 1 March 1839.
the preparation and finishing stages of production and worked in their homes or the homes of others. 100The persistence of domestic production does not disguise the existence of a different gendered division of labour.The stated occupation of the female lace workers on the share index confirms that the vast majority were employed in the preparation and finishing stages of production, as lace runners, drawers, menders, and so on.Thus, as with the hosiery trade elsewhere in the east midlands, Nottingham women employed in this sector remained domestic outworkers; but unlike in Leicester, growing numbers of women no longer seamed stockings made by their husbands; they were paid wages as individuals by other employers rather than as members of a household unit (as was the case before the growth of lace). 101This may explain why comparatively few women from Leicester or Leicestershire took out shares in the Land Plan: 47 in Leicester (17 of whom had no trade), and only 4 in Loughborough and 8 in the Leicestershire villages.While it is possible that many of these names have been lost given the incomplete nature of the subscription lists, this seems unlikely given that records exist for some 1,400 Leicestershire men with shares. 102he Nottinghamshire women lace workers might have been relatively independent, but they were no less exploited than many other domestic outworkers: their situation was dire enough for the Northern Star to feature a full-length article on their plight. 103or women in the lace trade, conditions were poor: long working hours (12-14 hours a day), in damp and humid rooms where they ruined their eye sight and fingers, for an average wage of 6 shillings in a trade that was prone to dramatic fluctuation, speculation and over-capitalization, in which its workers were not afforded the same degree of protection as cotton textile workers elsewhere, woeful though it often was. 104On the other hand, 6s was much better than the 1s 6d earned by female domestic outworkers in the framework knitting trade. 105Nonetheless, while domestic lace workers might have escaped the clutches of fathers and husbands, and were earning their own wages and making a significant contribution to their family's income, they were being exploited by other men, and other women who also acted as 'middlemen' in the lace trade. 106To describe these women as independent would be stretching credulity, though their subscriptions to the Land Plan were an aspiration to realizing independence, just as it was for the many male framework knitters who needed rescuing from a trade from which they saw no prospects of escaping.Similar aspirations to independence were also pulls for other groups of women who were independent wage earners but in exploitative jobs, hence its popularity with minors and young girls in domestic service.The Land Plan offered women a route out of servitude, just as it held out the prospect of some security for those women who had been widowed and had families to support.One such shareholder was Fortune Fletcher, a widowed mother of fifty-four, living on Greyfriars Gate in Nottingham, who was a lace runner with two adult unmarried daughters, both of whom were lace carders.The collective wage of the household was probably around twelve shillings.
Two caveats should be noted in using these data.First, not all those who took out subscriptions were necessarily Chartist sympathizers (this was a lottery and some were, no doubt, attracted by the possibility of winning a cottage and/or some land), many subscribers across the nation were Chartists. 107As Alan Little comments, 'Land Company subscription may actually give a better picture of occupational and geographical foundations of Chartism as a mass movement, than figures for a minority of committed activists on the National Charter Association council lists'. 108Second, it is possible that the 16% figure of women who had fathers or husbands who were also subscribers underestimates the number of women who joined at the urging of male family members, including those who were not members of the same household.This analysis has been conducted at the level of household, though it is clear from some of the record linkage that brothers and sisters were also members, though at whose urging remains unknown, and indeed unknowable.It may be that occupation, class, and community were just as important as family in explaining female membership of the Land Plan: many women lived in the same neighbourhood or the same street: for example, Mary Johnson and Maria Severn, neither of whom had husbands or fathers who were subscribers, lived next door but one on Denman St, Radford. 109Some families, though a small minority, joined up collectively as names of the individual members appear consecutively in the shareholder lists, while others may have joined up at different times, perhaps when family finances permitted a greater investment. 110necdotal evidence, however, suggests that influence could also work the other way.During one of his visits to Nottingham, Feargus O'Connor remarked that 'women constitute the great force of the Chartist ranks in Nottingham.'This was a tacit recognition, perhaps, of the role they had played in securing his recent election for the borough; and still declared this in 1850.O'Connor relayed the following story: I will give you an instance of the effect of women taking up the Land Plan . . .A very short time ago, a man came to see me at Lowbands, and said he was anxious to enter the Land Society.I told him it was Sunday, and the secretary was not there.'D-n it (said the man) I must and will join: for ever since last Sunday night, I have not had a wink of sleep, through my wife continually saying, "Wilt thou join the land plan?Wilt thou join the land plan?"' (Laughter and loud applause). 111nally, a degree of caution is needed in concluding that male Chartist artisans were opposed to the participation of their wives in the movement; many of those who were subscribers were related to framework knitters and other artisans -a group of men supposedly hostile to political women. 112There might have been a degree of opposition among some of these men to the political involvement of their wives, daughters and sisters, but this does not suggest that all of these women defied their menfolk in taking out subscriptions or in participating in the movement.

Conclusion
The opportunities for plebeian women to participate in politics were more varied, more extensive, and possibly more enduring than historians have often suggested.Female political engagement, in terms of both numbers and depth of engagement, seems to have increased rather decreased over this period.From being largely supportive and subordinate in the early nineteenth century, by the late 1840s some plebeian women were independent political actors.There is little evidence that working-class women were either marginalized or subordinated in protest or radical politics.The NFPU seems to have folded, but new opportunities opened up and, while they may not have been ideal vehicles for the pursuit of a feminist agenda in the way that some female Chartist associations were, it is necessary to be cautious in assuming that the Nottinghamshire women who signed up to the Land Plan were doing so to re-establish or reaffirm separate spheres or uphold domesticity and patriarchy.Given the number of independent women who took out shares, we should also be wary of concluding that the gendered vision of the Land Plan propagated by O'Connor -that women should be confined to hearth and home -was necessarily the vision that women were signing up to. 113The independent and assertive female politics that flowered in the Chartist movement represented the culmination of a tradition of female political activism which traced its origins to at least the early nineteenth century.If some of the Nottingham Chartist men traced their own radical careers back to the time of the Luddites, there is no reason to assume that some of the women were any different. 114Local economic and social factors also played their part in explaining why plebeian women were so politically assertive.There were problems within the hosiery trade as male framework knitters became more impoverished due to growing competition, sometimes from women, and because of the expansion of the lace trade and new opportunities it presented women.This meant that Nottingham's plebeian women were increasingly forced to look to their own salvation, hence the attraction of the Land Plan.The Nottingham region may be atypical -the extremely limited response of Leicestershire women has already been noted -but further research on other localities is needed to establish typicality.Certainly, 112 This is one of Clark's broader arguments, though in fairness to her careful handling of how the sexual division of labour differed according to occupational groups, she does note that weavers -the closest parallel to the Nottinghamshire framework knitters and lace workers -had a different gender culture from other artisans which reflected the more widespread participation of women in the family-based weaving workshop.While all-male artisan workshops tended to be much more exclusionary towards women -in both work and politics -some male domestic outworkers, in recognition of the role played by women in their trades, opted for sexual co-operation which gave women some economic, and by extension political, standing in their families and communities.The thrust of Clark's argument, however, is that working women in family-based workshops were increasingly subordinate and, by implication, denied the opportunity for independent political action once the traditional community forms of protest went into decline.

50
Northern Star, 6 May 1843. 51Northern Star, 8 December 1838. 52TNA, HO 27/58, f. 344, Criminal Registers. 53Nottingham Review, 18 October 1839. 54TNA, HO 40/47, f. 518, Duke of Portland to Home Office, 18 August 1839.There may be a clue here about why legal records under-report the number of women protesters.Had Cresswell not been in possession of a firearm, she would have remained an anonymous part of the amorphous crowd.For the ways in which gender informed judicial discretion, see D. Palk, Gender, Crime and Judicial Discretion (Woodbridge: Royal Historical Society, 2006), ch. 8.
a brilliant analysis of the social architecture of the Land Plan and Chartist cottages, see Helen Caffrey, 'Freedom to Farm: Housing Smallholders on the Chartist Land Colonies', Housing Histories, 22 April 2019, <https://housinghistories.home.blog/2019/04/22/freedom-to-farm-housing-smallholders-on-the-chartistland-colonies/>[accessed16November 2022].75NorthernStar, 6 November 1847.While O'Connor undoubtedly exaggerated the happiness and prosperity of those settled on the estates, some first-hand testimony -by Charles Tawes, the husband of Elizabeth -admitted that while conditions were hard, which was to be expected, they were improving, and he told his friends in Nottingham not to believe the false reports against the Land Plan.Tawes's letters were sent to a friend in Nottingham, and published in the local press: Nottingham Mercury, 8 and 15 October 1847. 76TNA, BT 41/474/2659, n.p. 77 BL, Add MS 34245A, f. 83, General Convention papers, J. Tomlinson to W. Lovett, 1 March 1839.
78Ibid, f, 85.79BL, Add MS 34245A, f. 90, General Convention papers, H. Sharman to W. Lovett, 1 March 1839; Northern Star, 9 September 1843. 80Prosecutions under the Weights and Measures Act were a regular feature of quarter sessions in the region.For evidence of knitters being paid in truck, see the testimony of the Sutton-in-Ashfield Chartist, George Kendall (also secretary of his local Anti-Truck Association, and a Land plan subscriber): Royal Commission into the Condition of Framework Knitters, p. 184; Gurney, pp.95-6.