Anonymous (The People’s Paper)

Great National Demonstration Of Nearly One Million People

in The People’s Paper. September 20, 1856.

Such a demonstration as occurred on Monday last to welcome Mr. John Frost and ratify the principles of Chartism, London has probably never before witnessed. The mighty multitudes lining the streets, the vast numbers forming the cortege, and congregated in every available part along the extended line of the route, the dense mass cresting Primrose Hill, waiting the arrival of the Procession...are certainly unparalleled in the history of popular ovations, in this country at least.

Chartism, which took its name from The People’s Charter of 1838, was a mass working class movement for political and social reform. Frost, one of its leaders in Wales, had been transported to the penal colony in Australia for his part in a demonstration that had ended in bloodshed. When he returned 15 years later Chartism was a spent force, although one would never suspect it from this account in its weekly newspaper.

One of the grandest sights of the kind perhaps ever held, was when the procession came in sight of Primrose Hill. We never shall forget the spectacle now displayed: the crowd lost to sight in the distance behind; the immense succession of banners; the boundless enthusiasm of the multitude...and in front the great hill crested and covered down half the descent, with a mass of people, over whom waved a solitary dark blue flag on the highest point, and from whom, like distant thunder, came a shout of greeting, as they caught sight of the head of the advancing line...At length the enormous masses settled into comparative quiet and Ernest Jones having been called by acclamation to preside, mounted on the shoulders of two stalwart working men, and began to address the crowd.