Margaret Chappellsmith

Early life

Chappellsmith [née Reynolds], was born in February 1806 in Aldgate, London. Her family was probably upper working class and she had at least three sisters and two brothers. She was a staunch Baptist until her early adulthood, when a friend of her sister's introduced her to the ideas of Robert Owen. Owen's ideas exerted an immediate influence upon her and by 1836 she had begun to write political articles for The Dispatch. These articles reflected her interest in communitarianism, women's position, and also in currency reform — a topic to which she had been led by her reading of William Cobbett. She continued to strengthen her ties with the Owenites and by 1839 she was working as a salaried lecturer for the movement. In this capacity she enjoyed huge success. Numerous reports to the Owenite press testified that she was one of the most popular speakers on the socialist circuit, frequently drawing huge crowds to her lectures. She was evidently a speaker of exceptional charisma: The Charter newspaper, for example, spoke of her ‘livid and impressive manner’.

Currency reform

Chappellsmith was a fierce defender of Owen's principles and particularly championed the possibilities which his system might herald for the emancipation of women. The ideas of William Cobbett, and in particular his criticism of the government's handling of currency reform, also continued to inform her ideas. In her highly popular lectures on currency reform she argued, with the assistance of an array of graphs and illustrations, that Cobbett's prophecies concerning the disastrous effect of state fiscal policies upon living standards had been fully vindicated. Her passion for this cause was further illustrated when, in 1841, she condensed and edited Cobbett's work Paper Against Gold. Chappellsmith followed the practice of other Owenite lecturers, such as Frances Morrison, in performing secular 'baptisms' or naming ceremonies for babies at the end of her lectures.

Public Condemnation

As a woman lecturing for the Owenite movement, and on such controversial topics as divorce, Chappellsmith often faced bitter public condemnation. On one occasion, in the town of Paisley, Scotland for example, she was met by a mob of women who stoned and abused her. Similarly, in South Shields she was followed by a violent crowd who shouted, ‘Are you her with the seven husbands?’ Such accusations were no doubt fuelled by an article in The Antidote, or, The Anti-Socialist Gazette (1841) which alleged that Chappellsmith had left her husband and embarked upon a series of affairs with socialist men. However, her detractors, in particular the editor, John Brindley, were rather disappointed to discover (after fully investigating Chappellsmith's private life) that she had but one man in her life, John Chappellsmith, to whom she had been happily married since 1839. John Chappellsmith fully supported his wife's activities and politics and assisted at her lectures. In 1842 Margaret Chappellsmith, who was also an active member of the Anti-Persecution Union, opened a bookshop in London and appears to have given up lecturing shortly afterwards.

Emigration to the USA

In 1850 the Chappellsmiths, who apparently had no children, emigrated from Liverpool to Indiana, USA on The Maine, taking only 43 days to travel to "the bank of the Mississippi". They were accompanied by other members of their family, perhaps to join one of Margaret's sisters who had earlier emigrated there. In America, Chappellsmith returned to journalism, contributing articles on a wide variety of subjects to the Boston Investigator. The move to the United States did not prove to be a great success. The Chappellsmiths were attracted to Indiana by the settlement at New Harmony; the Owenite community there had disbanded in 1827 but its leader, Robert Dale Owen (the son of Robert Owen), among others, continued to be based there.

Disillusionment with Robert Dale Owen

The Chappellsmiths were disillusioned by the political and religious atmosphere they found at New Harmony. In particular, Margaret Chappellsmith was aggrieved by what she considered to be Owen's conversion to religion and his pragmatic stance on abolition of slavery. The bitter articles and lectures she subsequently wrote on R. D. Owen proved influential among the socialist community in Britain, to the consternation of Owen's family.

Later life

Margaret Chappellsmith was evidently an obdurate woman of uncompromising and sometimes surprisingly puritanical principles. She was extremely critical of socialist branches which permitted young men and women to waltz together, for example. Perhaps more tellingly, she once explained to Robert Owen that she refused to forgive her sister for the way she had behaved towards a potential suitor many years previously until she demonstrated signs of ‘self-reproach’, hoping that this would induce her to a ‘careful examination’ of her feelings. Such inflexibility perhaps helps to explain Chappellsmith's difficulty in finding happiness in a foreign culture. Indeed, accounts of Chappellsmith from the latter part of her life suggest a somewhat embittered and eccentric personality. Nevertheless, she remained at New Harmony until her death there in February 1883.