James Bronterre O'Brien - Political Awakening and Activism

Political Awakening and Activism

In London he joined the Radical Reform Association where he met Henry Hunt, William Cobbett, Henry Hetherington and other leaders of the struggle for universal suffrage. In 1836 he joined the London Working Men's Association.

O'Brien began contributing articles to Henry Hetherington's Poor Man's Guardian. He signed these articles with the pseudonym 'Bronterre' and James O'Brien eventually adopted it as his middle name. He worked very closely with Hetherington and when he was imprisoned for publishing an unstamped newspaper, O'Brien took over the editorship of the Poor Man's Guardian. O'Brien and Hetherington also collaborated on other unstamped newspapers such as The Destructive and the London Dispatch. In 1837 O'Brien began publishing Bronterre's National Reformer. In an attempt to avoid paying stamp duty, the journal included essays rather than 'news items'. During this period, Henry Hetherington and O'Brien led the struggle against the stamp duty and were consistent in their arguments that working people needed cheap newspapers that contained political information.

O'Brien was influenced by the socialist writer, Gracchus Babeuf, who had been executed during the French Revolution. In 1836 O'Brien began publishing translations of Babeuf's work in the Poor Man's Guardian. He also included Filippo Buonarroti's account of Babeuf and the Conspiracy of Equals. O'Brien became fascinated with the history of radicalism and began work on books on the French Revolution and the English Commonwealth. However, the authorities raided his house in 1838 and seized his manuscripts and the projects were never completed.

In 1838 O'Brien added his support for a more militant approach to winning the vote that was being advocated by Feargus O'Connor and George Julian Harney through the London Democratic Association. However, O'Brien, unlike O'Connor, refused to support the use of violence to achieving universal suffrage. O'Brien argued that the Chartists should adopt a policy that was midway between the petitioning supported by William Lovett and the Moral Force Chartists, and the violence being threatened by O'Connor's Physical Force group.

After Bronterre's National Reformer ceased publication, O'Brien worked for O'Connor's Northern Star. His articles played an important role in increasing the circulation of what had become the most important of the radical newspapers. As well as writing for the Northern Star, James O'Brien also found time to publish his own newspaper The Operative.