Browse Items (3442 total)

This article describes two, peaceable Chartist meetings in Aberdeen. At the second of these, it was decided to order a gun and bayonet for each of the five hundred plus members of the 'National Guard' of Chartists.

This excerpt from The People's Charter describes how the proposed Act, which would allow all men aged 21 and over to vote, would work. The Balloting Place and the Ballot Box are described in detail, as are the duties of the registration and returning…

This Chartist pamphlet urges the working classes to unite to demand the vote for all, secret voting and annual parliaments. Chartists believed that education was the best way to fight poverty and to promote an improvement in conditions for the…

This page from the Aberdeen Labour Elector shows how the Labour Party in Aberdeen analysed the Town Council - which members could, and which could not be relied upon to support them. The second last paragraph on the right hand column refers to the…

This essay on the condition of farm servants in the mid nineteenth century has been written from a farmer's point of view. The farmer sees the servants as 'mere living agricultural machines' and feels that they would benefit from moral and spiritual…

The writer, a Tory, who wished to keep the Corn Laws, entreats the Aberdeenshire voter to vote for Captain Gordon, the Tory candidate, in the first election after the reform bill has been passed.

A description of conditions for farm workers in the nineteenth century. The writer also suggests some possibilities for improvement.

This little poem points out that the council is no longer self-selected. Through burgh reform, things have changed.

A pre-1832-Reform Act look at corruption in parliamentary elections.

Professor John Stuart Blackie opposed the 1867 Reform Bill as he believed it to be 'purely democratic' and wished to see changes in the methods of representation of the people. A course of action (eg elections), should not be determined by the vote…