ROBERT LOWERY – NORTH SHIELDS’ FORGOTTEN CHARTIST LEADER

Piecing together reports from newspapers, documents in the National Archive and his own memoir Stuart, a trustee and regular speaker at the Old Low Light Heritage Centre, will explain how Robert Lowery became interested in the political issues of his day and after speaking to a large crowd on North Shield’s New Quay he was soon speaking to mass demonstrations on Newcastle’s Town Moor.

He was then chosen to represent Newcastle at the first national meeting supporting The People’s Charter, which proposed extending the vote to ordinary working men, something Lord Grey’s 1832 Reform Act had failed to do.

The talk will show how Lowery became one of Chartism’s leading speakers, using his fiery oratory to promote The Charter before it was submitted to Parliament. It was Parliament’s rejection of it that started Lowery’s move towards more moderate ideas, especially after the failed Chartist uprising in Newport at the end of 1839. Examples of Chartist activity in the North-East area will also be covered.

Stuart has unearthed evidence that despite Robert Lowery’s disputes with Chartism’s radical leaders, like Feargus O’Connor, he carried on campaigning for extending the franchise into the 1840s. Although by the time of Chartism’s next major upsurge, in 1848, Lowery was a passionate advocate for the Temprance Movement.

The talk will finish by tracing the why’s and the how’s of Lowery’s move towards the Temperance Movement, with examples of his activities up and down the country before he finally settled in Edinburgh as a Temperance Missionary. He later moved to Canada, to be with his daughter, where he died in 1863.

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