proved an efficient agitating body and succeeded for many years in recruiting new men of zeal and ability, like Thomas Cooper, Ernest Jones, George Jacob Holyoake, and William James Linton.
The new organisation got under way rather slowly. James Leach and William Tillman, both of the Manchester district, acted as chiefs of a provisional Executive Committee. In August 1840 they issued an appeal for the prompt payment of subscriptions. Local Chartist organisations were dissolved and absorbed into the new Association, but owing to the belief that the Association was illegal, this went on very slowly. By February 1841 there were only eighty "localities" registered."[1] Another cause was operating to discourage recruiting, namely the provision that members' names should be registered. This was apparently necessary on account of the mysterious Acts of 1799 and 1817, but it aroused one Chartist to call the Association "the Attorney-General's Registration Office for Political Offenders."[2] This was no doubt the original intention of the clause in the Acts, and it apparently aroused no little doubts in the minds of many Chartists. In the spring of 1841 the revised constitution was promulgated, and a more rapid growth followed. By December 1841 there were 282 localities,[3] with apparently some 13,000 members. The membership is stated in April 1842 as 50,000. In the spring of 1841 the provisional Executive gave place to a regular elected Committee, consisting of MacDouall, Leach, Morgan Williams, John Campbell, George Binns, and R. K. Philp. Campbell, a Manchester man of no great ability or importance, also acted as Secretary.[4] Abel Heywood, the well-known bookseller, of Oldham Street, Manchester, acted as Treasurer until the removal of Campbell to London in 1842 caused that office to pass to Cleave, since it was convenient for both Secretary and Treasurer to live in the same place. But the treasurership of so impecunious a body was little more than a sinecure. The growing preponderance of Manchester in the movement is a noteworthy matter and indicates a further stage of localisation.
The Scottish and the Manchester reorganisations were by no means the only result of the Chartist revival, but they were
