out, however, that the Convention was a legal assembly and was never in danger of prosecution under the Act mentioned. London was represented by seven members of the Working Men's Association, including Lovett, Cleave, Hetherington, and O'Brien, and by one William Cardo, a shoemaker of Marylebone. In addition the Association had "lent" Vincent to Hull and Cheltenham, and William Carpenter to Bolton. Similarly the London Democratic Association found places for Harney and Neesom, its chiefs, at Newcastle and Bristol. Thus London furnished a quarter of the whole assembly.[1] Birmingham sent five representatives out of the original eight, including Collins, Douglas, Salt, and Hadley. From the North of England came a score, including O'Connor, MacDouall, who sat for Ashton-under-Lyne in place of Stephens, R. J. Richardson, who represented Manchester, Ryder, Bussey, Pitkeithly, who were the beginning of an O'Connorite "tail," and Richard Marsden, a handloom weaver from Preston. Scotland had eight representatives. Wales had two, Jones of Newtown in Montgomery and John Frost of Newport. Three from the hosiery districts, including Dr. A. S. Wade, Vicar of Warwick, and half a dozen from scattered towns like Hull and Bristol made up the tale. Only one agricultural area was represented, and that by courtesy only, and not by virtue of Chartist zeal. It was Dorset, which sent George Loveless, one of the famous labourers of '34. He never took his seat.
Nearly one-half the assembly belonged to the non-artisan classes. Some, like O'Connor and John Taylor, were sheer demagogues; others, such as O'Brien and Carpenter, were doctrinaire social revolutionaries. The Birmingham delegates, except Collins, were prosperous fellows who had drifted into political agitation. Hadley was an Alderman of Birmingham and a warden of St. Martin's Church in the Bull Ring. Douglas was the editor of the Birmingham Journal, and Salt was a lamp manufacturer on a considerable scale. Wade was a kind of Christian Socialist, a predecessor of Charles Kingsley. James Taylor was a Unitarian minister of Bolton, probably moved by sympathy with suffering to take part in the movement. There were several medical men, inspired, no doubt, by similar motives, several booksellers, a lawyer,[2] and a publican or two.
