The National Charter Association (NCA) (1840-1858) was formed on July 20, 1840, in a conference chaired by James Leach, of twenty three Chartist delegates in Manchester.
[1][2] The NCA was formed in response to the decline of the Chartist position.
[3] The establishment of the NCA and its national executive paved the way for a more structured kind of working-class organisation, one which included membership fees and elected representatives; therefore in historiography it has often been described as one of the world’s first mass political parties to exist that had a large working-class membership.
[1] Membership of the NCA was open to both men and women[4] who agreed with its objective to obtain radical reform of the House of Commons.
[2] In 1841, a year after its formation, many local Chartist and Working Men's Associations were drawn to the NCA due to its revised and now legal constitution; in conjunction with its formation, a mechanism became available through which these associations could subscribe to the Chartist movement.