50 Facts About Feargus O'Connor

Feargus Edward O'Connor was an Irish Chartist leader and advocate of the Land Plan, which sought to provide smallholdings for the labouring classes.

Feargus O'Connor was originally christened Edward Bowen O'Connor, but his father chose to call him Feargus.

Feargus O'Connor's father was Irish nationalist politician Roger O'Connor, who like his uncle Arthur O'Connor was active in the United Irishmen.

Burdett looked after them, and financed Feargus O'Connor to run a farm in Ireland, but it was unsuccessful.

Feargus O'Connor studied law at Trinity College, Dublin, before inheriting his uncle's estate in 1820.

Feargus O'Connor took no degree, but was called to the Irish bar about 1820.

Feargus O'Connor's first known public speech was made in 1822 at Enniskeen, County Cork, denouncing landlords and the Protestant clergy.

Feargus O'Connor produced five manuscripts at this time, but none were ever published.

In 1831 Feargus O'Connor agitated for the Reform Bill in County Cork, and, after its passage in 1832, he travelled about the county organising registration of the new electorate.

Feargus O'Connor came into Parliament as a follower of Daniel O'Connell, and his speeches during this time were devoted mainly to the Irish question.

Feargus O'Connor was sarcastically described by Fraser's Magazine as active, bustling, violent, a ready speaker, and the model of an Irish patriot, but as one who did nothing, suggested nothing, and found fault with everything.

Feargus O'Connor voted with the radicals: for tax on property; for Thomas Attwood's motion for an inquiry into the conditions that prevailed in England; and in support of Lord Ashley's 1847 Factory Bill.

Feargus O'Connor quarrelled with O'Connell, repudiating him for his practice of yielding to the Whigs, and came out in favour of a more aggressive Repeal policy.

Feargus O'Connor next planned to raise a volunteer brigade for Isabella II of Spain in the First Carlist War, but when William Cobbett died in April 1835, he decided to run for Cobbett's seat at Oldham.

Feargus O'Connor presented himself as an alternative Radical candidate, but eventually withdrew, alleging Fielden had not been straightforward with him: whether because of the controversy over the selection of the candidate or the refusal of J M Cobbett to support disestablishment, Cobbett lost narrowly to a local 'Liberal Conservative'.

From 1833 Feargus O'Connor had spoken to working men's organisations and agitated in factory areas for the "Five Cardinal Points of Radicalism," which were five of the six points later embodied in the People's Charter.

Feargus O'Connor was the Leeds representative of the London Working Men's Association.

Feargus O'Connor travelled Britain speaking at meetings, and was one of the most popular Chartist orators; some Chartists named their children after him.

Feargus O'Connor was at various points arrested, tried and imprisoned for his views, receiving an 18-month sentence in 1840.

Feargus O'Connor became involved in internal struggles within the movement.

When Chartism again gained momentum Feargus O'Connor was elected in 1847 MP for Nottingham, and he organised the Chartist meeting on Kennington Common, London, in 1848.

However Feargus O'Connor truly came into his own not when addressing audiences of London artisans or in the House of Commons, but when he went north as a public speaker.

Feargus O'Connor began to spend a large part of his time travelling through the north of England, addressing huge meetings, in which he denounced the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act and advocated manhood suffrage.

Only by securing the vote, Feargus O'Connor argued, could working people be rid of the hated New Poor Law.

Feargus O'Connor expressed defiance, determination and hope, and flavoured these speeches with comic similes and anecdotes.

Feargus O'Connor looked the part of a popular leader, too.

Feargus O'Connor's physique was to his advantage: over six feet, muscular and massive, the "model of a Phoenician Hercules".

Feargus O'Connor was not ready to accept the political leadership of the London Working Men's Association.

Feargus O'Connor knew that the workers wanted something more immediate than political education.

Feargus O'Connor became the "constant travelling, dominant leader of the movement" He, not William Lovett, became the voice of Chartism.

Feargus O'Connor, who had seen at first hand the embittered relations between workers and capitalists in the north of England, did not like the strategy of reasonable argument advocated by men like Lovett.

Feargus O'Connor was not involved in the planning of this event, though he must have known that there was a mood for rebellion among Chartists.

Feargus O'Connor was a dangerous man to the authorities, and a sentence of 18 months in York Castle was passed on him in May 1840.

Feargus O'Connor was jailed; while in prison he continued to write for the Northern Star.

Feargus O'Connor made biting attacks on the Anti-Corn Law League.

Feargus O'Connor considered that the "law of primogeniture is the eldest son of class legislation upon corruption by idleness".

Feargus O'Connor declared that Great Britain could support its own population if its lands were properly cultivated.

Feargus O'Connor had no doubts of the yields obtainable under such spade-husbandry.

Feargus O'Connor proposed a stock company in which working men could buy land on the open market.

Feargus O'Connor's plan was built on the assumption that land could be bought in unlimited quantities and at reasonable rates, and that all subscribers would be successful farmers who would repay promptly.

In 1847 Feargus O'Connor ran for parliament and, remarkably, defeated Thomas Benjamin Hobhouse in Nottingham but the Land Plan ran into trouble.

The tragedy that was Feargus O'Connor's story was nearing its end.

Feargus O'Connor quarrelled with his closest colleagues, including Ernest Jones, Julian Harney and Thomas Clark.

Feargus O'Connor's health was failing, and reports of his mental breakdown regularly appeared in the newspapers.

In 1852 in the House of Commons Feargus O'Connor struck three fellow MPs, one of them Sir Benjamin Hall, a vocal critic of the Land Plan.

Feargus O'Connor died on 30 August 1855 at 18 Albert Terrace, Notting Hill Gate.

Feargus O'Connor never married, but had a number of relationships and it is believed that he fathered several children.

Abler men among the leadership there certainly were and men with a clearer sense of direction in which a working-class movement should go, but none of them had the appeal which Feargus O'Connor had nor his ability to win the confidence and support of the great crowds who made up the Chartist meetings in their heyday.

Feargus O'Connor was accused of egotism and of being quarrelsome.

Cole, Feargus O'Connor was inconsistent but a sincere friend of the poor.