| Description | Refers to Attwood's speech when presenting a petition from the manual weavers of Stockport, complaining of their distress at the low rate of wages and the improvements to machinery which had reduced employment: they wanted a minimum wage rate to be set by government, relief and compensation; Attwood himself did not advocate the views of the petitioners but was sensible to their 'state of great calamity'; Attwood and the petitioners did not deny that the machinery improvements were beneficial to the community at large
Undated [30 May 1823]
[Thomas Attwood (1783-1856), founder of the Birmingham Political Union, campaigner for the 1832 Reform Act; involved in the early stages of Chartism] |