Without a debate, the House of Commons voted against it.

', Cuffay makes fleeting appearances in three mid-nineteenth century works of literature. His Dad, Chatham Cuffay, was a freed slave from St Kitts. He had joined the protest at the last minute, having previously argued against such action. They did not show the spirit they ought.

London, SE17. Front page of Reynold’s Political Instructor, April 13, 1850 MAC Local Studies Collection. Republished with notes and illustrations by Past Tense, October 2005. Cuffay was one of the organisers of the large Chartist rally on Kennington Common on 10 April 1848, but was dismayed by the timidity of other leaders, who had rejected the idea that the rally should be a show of force. Because he was a Chartist celebrity, all Australian and most other newspapers in the world noted his arrival and the government thought it a good idea to give him a ticket of leave straight away, so he was relatively free to go and practice his trade. Punch lampooned him savagely and The Times referred to London's Chartists as 'the Black man and his Party';3 as a direct result of this press campaign his wife Mary Ann was sacked from her job as charwoman. It seemed like the absolute power of monarchs and nobility were out, and more democracy was in. The author of 'A word in defence of Cuffey' in the Reasoner had this to say: ‘When hundreds of working men elected this man to audit the accounts of their benefit society, they did so in the full belief of his trustworthiness, and he never gave them reason to repent of their choice.

William Cuffay was born in Chatham, Kent, in 1788. She was ever open to new people and unstinting in giving her time to others. [2] In 1839, Cuffay helped to form the Metropolitan Tailors' Charter Association.

He married Ann Marshall at St. Martin in the Fields on 24 May 1819. In the hour of danger no man could be more depended on than William Cuffay - a strict disciplinarian, and a lover of order - he was firm in the discharge of Convicts under guard in Van Diemen’s land (Tasmania), 1831. In 1848, Europe's year of revolutions, he was put on trial for levying war against Queen Victoria. William Cuffay (1788 – July 1870) was a Chartist leader in early Victorian London. Workers could buy shares, the company would buy land and then cut it up in smaller lots, to be owned and worked by the shareholders. Then 1848 happened. At the centre of it was a document called the People’s Charter, that advocated for manhood suffrage (voting rights), also for men without property, a secret ballot, annual elections and abolition of a property qualification for Members of Parliament, so everybody could be elected. [8], List of convicts transported to Australia, "The Isle of Denial: William Cuffay in Van Diemens Land", "Isle of Denial: William Cuffay in Van Diemen's Land", A short film about William Cuffay Camden tv, William Cuffay portrait: National Portrait Gallery, THE IRISH CONFEDERACY To the Editor of the Daily Courier, LAUNCESTON, 18 July 1854, The Isle of Denial: William Cuffay in Van Diemens Land, Cuffay and other Chartists in Australian Newspapers, WILLIAM CUFFAY : The Life & Times of a Chartist Leader: Martin Hoyles, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Cuffay&oldid=952052078, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 20 April 2020, at 09:43. The Metropolitan Police had paid Powell £1 per week, Davis a lump sum of £150, and had also bought information from at least two other Chartists.

Cuffay was elected as one of the commissioners to campaign for the Charter after its rejection by Parliament… Most of our scanty information about his activities comes from police spies, one of whom was actually a member of the seven-strong 'Ulterior Committee' that was planning an uprising in London. In a speech sharply critical of the national leadership, he declared that the Irish patriots, ('confederates'): “were also in an advanced state of preparation, and if a spark wore laid to the train in Ireland, they would not wait for Chartists. ▶ Get 'recent posts' refreshed more regularly Appointed chairman of the committee for managing the procession, Cuffay was responsible for making sure that “everything… necessary for conducting an immense procession with order and regularity had been adopted”, and suggested that stewards wear tricolour sashes and rosettes. Address: William Cuffay House 120 Dartford Street SE17. Cuffay, by now 60 years old, was not in the least impressed. “I demand trial by my peers,” he said, “according to the principles of Magna Charta.” Then the prospective jurors were challenged, and one, asked if he had ever expressed an opinion as to Cuffay's guilt or innocence, or what ought to be the result of the trial, replied: “Yes, I have expressed an opinion that they ought ought to be hanged.” He was told to retire, “and after considerable delay a jury was at length formed.” Though counsel for the boot cleaver Thomas Fay and the bootmaker William Lacey - two Chartists who stood in the dock with Cuffay - said his clients were satisfied, Cuffay made it clear that he himself was not. He died in poverty at the Hobart Invalid Depot in July 1870. Cuffay was mixed-race, the son of an English woman from Gillingham, Kent, Juliana Fox, and a man of African heritage, Chatham Cuffey, who was previously enslaved and originally from Saint Kitts (then a British colony). Chatham worked as a cook on a British warship, which led him to William… He did not back down and his involvement in the Chartist movement increased. Throughout his seventies and even into his eighties, William Cuffay remained politically active, addressing meetings, influencing the younger generations and writing inflammatory articles. Welcome to Southwark's Homesearch website, allocating council and partner housing association properties for rent within the borough. She was named Ann Juliana Cuffay. He was baptised in February 1772, soon after his arrival, and in 1779 found employment at Chatham Dockyard.

He was blacklisted for his involvement, which made it hard for him to find work thereafter.

[3] Defended by eminent barrister John Walter Huddleston, he was convicted of preparing acts of arson, intended as a signal for the planned armed uprising. His parents were possibly former slaves who had been freed but their son Chatham Cuffay was certainly never enslaved. Normal apprenticeships lasted for 7 years, so at the age of 19 he was a fully-fledged tailor.