William Lovett

William Lovett ( born May 8, 1800 Penzance ( Cornwall); † August 8, 1877 ) was a leader of the English Chartism.

Lovett worked as Seiler and carpenters in London and became involved in the nascent labor movement of its time. As an official of the cooperative system also are at the beginning, he worked as an orator and agitator. In the context of debates about the reform legislation of 1832 Lovett was the first time on a larger scale politically active. At this time he was one of the advocates of arming the workers, in order to defend themselves against the feared violence of state power.

1836 Lovett and some friends founded the London Working Men 's Association, first as a Workers' Educational Association, but increasingly as a politically activist group.

Since 1832 began, disappointed by the widespread disregard for the workers in the reform legislation and the small influence of young labor unions to form the Chartist movement, which was based on petitions and demonstrations as a means of political influence. Lovett was one of the founders of this movement and was elected on a Chartistenkonvent in February 1839 its secretary. He was the most important representative of the moderate wing of the movement, which relied on convincing the leaders with moral arguments and the use of physical violence declined. His attempts to win support from the bourgeois camp and the establishment of workers' education associations by Lovett brought him increasingly into conflict with the dominant soon violent flow of the Chartists Feargus O'Connor to.

His workers' education movement under the name " New Move" fell far short of Lovett's own expectations. The membership never rose above 5000. The teaching operation was limited to Sunday schools. From the mid-1840s, Lovett had hardly any influence on the Chartist movement, the broadly collapsed in 1848. He spent his remaining years of life as a science teacher at the school he founded in 1849.