Protest & Change Flashcards
All 15 cards in this deck
What did the Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833 do?
It abolished slavery in most of the British Empire from 1834, with compensation paid to the slave owners; most freed people had to work as unpaid 'apprentices' until 1838.
Who were Richard Cobden and John Bright?
The leaders of the Anti-Corn Law League, who campaigned with speeches, pamphlets and petitions against the Corn Laws; the Corn Laws were repealed in 1846.
What did the Factory Act of 1833 do?
Banned children under 9 from working in textile mills, limited the hours of older children, and appointed factory inspectors to enforce the law.
Who was Lord Shaftesbury?
A factory and social reformer whose campaigning led to the Mines Act 1842 (banning women and boys under 10 underground) and the Ten Hour Act 1847.
Give one similarity between the methods of the Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law League.
Both used mass meetings, petitions and newspapers to put pressure on Parliament to change the law.
When was the British slave trade abolished?
In 1807, when Parliament banned British ships and merchants from trading in slaves. Slavery itself continued in the colonies until the 1833 Act.
Who was Thomas Clarkson?
A leading abolitionist who helped found the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787 and travelled the country collecting evidence against the trade.
Who was William Wilberforce?
An MP who led the campaign against the slave trade inside Parliament, repeatedly bringing motions until the trade was abolished in 1807.
Name one method the anti-slavery campaigners used outside Parliament.
Boycotting slave-grown sugar; others included petitions, public lectures and Josiah Wedgwood's medallion of a kneeling enslaved man.
What were the Corn Laws (1815)?
Laws banning imports of foreign wheat until the British price reached 80 shillings a quarter, to keep grain prices high; this helped landowners but made bread dearer for workers.
Why did factory owners want the Corn Laws repealed?
Dear bread meant they had to pay higher wages, which raised their costs; they also believed free trade would sell more British goods abroad.
Who repealed the Corn Laws, and when?
The Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, in 1846, partly because of the Irish Potato Famine. It split his party.
How did the Anti-Corn Law League use elections in its campaign?
It targeted by-elections and helped supporters register as voters, for example by buying freehold land worth 40 shillings a year, which gave a county vote, so as to elect MPs who backed repeal.
Who was Richard Oastler?
A factory reformer who in 1830 compared children's work in Yorkshire mills to slavery, and campaigned for a ten-hour working day.
What were Ragged Schools?
Free schools for the poorest children, often giving them meals; Lord Shaftesbury became president of the Ragged School Union in 1844.