George Julian Harney - Involvement With Chartist Movement

Involvement With Chartist Movement

At the Chartist Convention held during the summer of 1839, Harney and William Benbow convinced the delegates to call a Grand National Holiday on 12 August. Feargus O'Connor argued against the plan but was defeated. Harney and Benbow toured the country in an attempt to persuade workers to join the strike. When Harney and Benbow were both arrested and charged with making seditious speeches, the General Strike was called off. Harney was kept in Warwick Gaol but when he appeared at Birmingham Assizes the grand jurt refused to indict him of sedition or any other charge.

Disappointed by the failure of the Grand National Holiday, Harney moved to Ayrshire, Scotland, where he married Mary Cameron. Harney's exile did not last long and the following year he became the Chartist organizer in Sheffield. During the strikes of 1842 Harney was one of the 58 Chartists arrested and tried at Lancaster in March 1843. After his conviction was reversed on appeal, Harney became a journalist for Feargus O'Connor's Northern Star. Two years later he became the editor of the newspaper.

Tristram Hunt describes him during this period:

George Julian Harney, Chartism's enfant terrible ... was firmly on the radical side of the movement, advocating the use of physical force and enjoying riling his conservative comrades by flaunting the red cap of liberty at public meetings. In and out of jail, endlessly feuding with fellow Chartists, and ultimately expelled from the party, the Robespierre-admiring Harney remained convinced that insurrection was the surest route to achieve the demands of the charter.