William Lovett

Born in the Cornish town of Newlyn in 1800, Lovett moved to London as a young man seeking work as a cabinet maker.

In 1831, during the Reform Act agitation, he helped form the National Union of the Working Classes with radical colleagues Henry Hetherington and James Watson.

In June 1836 Lovett founded the London Working Men's Association with several radical colleagues including Hetherington.

The LWMA's membership was restricted to 100 working men, although it admitted 35 honorary members including the later Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor.

Other honorary members included radical MP's, but the LWMA was strictly a working-class organisation, unlike groups such as the Birmingham Political Union, whose executive was dominated by the middle-class.

The original purpose of the LWMA was education, but in 1838 Lovett and fellow Radical Francis Place drafted a parliamentary bill which was the foundation of the Peoples' Charter, and the Association was effectively sidetracked into Chartism.

Lovett and Collins were later found guilty of seditious libel, and were sentenced to twelve months imprisonment in Warwick Gaol.

Hetherington and Place supported the move, but O'Connor opposed the scheme in the Northern Star, believing it would distract Chartists from the main aim of having the petition implemented.