30 Facts About Henry Hetherington

Henry Hetherington was an English printer, bookseller, publisher and newspaper proprietor who campaigned for social justice, a free press, universal suffrage and religious freethought.

Henry Hetherington was a leader of the "moral force" wing of the Chartist movement and a supporter of pro-democracy movements in other countries.

Henry Hetherington's name is included on the Reformers' Memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery.

In 1811 Henry Hetherington married Elizabeth Thomas, from Wales, and the marriage produced nine children, although only one, David, survived him.

Henry Hetherington became an active member of a number of radical organisations whose aims included co-operation, the provision of education to working men and universal suffrage.

Henry Hetherington's first publishing venture, in January 1823, was Mudie's journal, the Political Economist and Universal Philanthropist.

Henry Hetherington then joined the London Mechanics Institute in Chancery Lane, founded by George Birkbeck to provide adult education to working-class men.

Henry Hetherington served on its committee between 1824 and 1830 and it was there that he met Lovett and Watson.

Henry Hetherington became one of the BAPCK's most accomplished speakers and played an important role in the growth of the movement.

Henry Hetherington remained loyal to Owen's social and economic views, but criticised his apolitical stance.

Henry Hetherington did not edit his own papers, using James Bronterre O'Brien and other writers to do so.

Henry Hetherington combined these activities with recruiting vendors and setting up distribution networks for his papers.

Henry Hetherington's high-profile made him one of the government's main targets for prosecution.

Henry Hetherington was imprisoned three times, fined and his printing presses were seized.

Henry Hetherington always defended himself in court and his defiant speeches from the dock were sold as cheap pamphlets.

Henry Hetherington converted his unstamped Twopenny Dispatch into the stamped London Dispatch and People's Political and Social Reformer, apologising to his readers for the price rise and saying that personal courage was useless against the government's new powers.

Henry Hetherington remained politically active, joining William Lovett's London Working Men's Association.

Hetherington and other speakers, including John Cleave and Henry Vincent, toured the country promoting universal suffrage and encouraging local groups to organise along LWMA lines.

Henry Hetherington was an elected delegate to the Chartist "General Convention of the Industrious Classes", which assembled in London and Birmingham 1839 to oversee the presentation of a parliamentary petition in support of the Charter, and to plan Chartism's response in the event of the petition being rejected.

Henry Hetherington remained in the NA for six or so years, but it was a small organisation, never able to challenge the supremacy of O'Connor and the NCA, and he turned his attention to other issues, including religious freethought, international politics and Owenism.

Henry Hetherington had been interested in freethought since the 1820s, joining the Freethinking Christians, a small sect.

However, after his expulsion for questioning a decision by its leader, Henry Hetherington had written a pamphlet exposing what he saw as the group's hypocrisy.

In 1846 his commitment to freethought led to a rift with Lovett, after which Henry Hetherington left the NA to join the atheist George Holyoake at the Literary and Scientific Institution, John Street.

The John Street Institution was one of Robert Owen's London bases and during the 1840s Henry Hetherington reconnected with mainstream Owenism.

Henry Hetherington attended Owen's Rational Society conference in 1845 and, with Owenites such as Holyoake, Lloyd Jones and Robert Buchanan, founded the League of Social Progress in 1848.

In 1844, following meetings to support the German radical, Wilhelm Weitling, Henry Hetherington helped to form the Democratic Friends of All Nations, and he later joined Giuseppe Mazzini's Peoples' International League.

Henry Hetherington did not abandon his belief in the Charter.

Henry Hetherington had joined Lovett in an alliance with Joseph Sturge's Complete Suffrage Movement in 1842, and in 1848 he co-founded the moral-force People's Charter Union.

Henry Hetherington refused medicine in the belief that his long-standing teetotalism would protect him from disease.

In 1885 a Reformers' Memorial obelisk, which included Henry Hetherington's name, was erected in the cemetery.