Martin Hoyles

William Cuffay was one of the leaders of Chartism in Britain which was a working-class protest movement for political reform that erupted from 1838 to 1857. His grandfather was an African slave and his father was a West Indian slave, from St Kitts, who managed to gain his freedom and settle in Kent.
Cuffay trained as a tailor and moved to London where, in 1834, he was involved in the tailors’ strike for shorter hours. In 1839, he joined the Chartist movement and soon became well known for his oratory and sense of humour. At the final mass demonstration for the Charter on Kennington Common in London on 10 April 1848, he protested strongly at the decision to call off the march to the House of Commons to present the petition. He called the national leadership “a set of cowardly humbugs”.
In August 1848, Cuffay became involved in a secret revolutionary committee which was planning an uprising in London. He was arrested, tried and convicted, on the evidence of two police spies, of levying war against the Queen. He was sentenced to transportation for life in Tasmania where he carried on working as a tailor and remained actively involved in Tasmanian politics for twenty years.
William Cuffay’s reputation during the Chartist years was immense, yet he was subsequently forgotten for over 130 years. This book aims to set him in his historical context and restore him to his rightful place as one of the key figures in British history.

• 228 x 152 mm
• 284 pages
• Paperback

Martin Hoyles taught in Newham secondary schools and at the University of East London. He has written books on gardening, childhood and literacy. His books include The Axe Laid to the Root: The Story of Robert Wedderburn and Ira Aldridge: Celebrated 19th Century Actor. With his wife Asher, Martin wrote Remember Me: Achievements of Mixed Race People, Past and Present, Moving Voices: Black Performance Poetry, Dyslexia from a Cultural Perspective and Caribbean Publishing in Britain.