In 1839, the common people of the United Kingdom, fed up with oppression and poverty, took to the streets by the tens of thousands and united under the banner of a new social movement: Chartism.

Their goal was rather simple. They wanted the right to vote.

Seven years earlier, a coalition of middle- and working-class radicals had forced the Reform Act through parliament, extending suffrage from the landed aristocracy to middle-class property owners but excluding the vast majority of Britons, who were property-less workers.