In May 1838, Dr Arthur Wade faced a Glasgow crowd, shouting, ‘I hold in my hand a charter – the People’s Charter.’ This pioneering document quickly proved to be a uniting focus for the campaign for universal male suffrage.
The charter had historical precedents in the 1215 Magna Carta and the Levellers’ An Agreement of the People (1647). The 1689 Bill of Rights failed to improve mass political rights and in the eighteenth century, pressure was put on the ruling elite to make concessions towards participative democracy. In 1776, Major John Cartwright argued for universal male suffrage in his pamphlet Take Your Choice, and reform bills were introduced in 1776 by John Wilkes and in 1780 by the Earl of Richmond.
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