George Julian Harney (17 February 1817 – 9 December 1897) was a British political activist, journalist, and Chartist leader. He was also associated with Marxism, socialism, and universal suffrage.
Early life George Julian Harney, the son of a seaman, was born in Deptford in south-east London. When Harney was eleven he entered the Boys' Naval School at Greenwich for training as a merchant sailor.A. R. Schoyen, The Chartist Challenge. A Portrait of George Julian Harney (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958), p.3. For six months he was at sea, going to Lisbon and Brazil.Edward Aveling, George Julian Harney: A Straggler of 1848., in The Social Democrat, No. 1, January 1897, p.3. However, instead of pursuing a career in the navy he became a shop-boy for Henry Hetherington, the editor of the Poor Man's Guardian. Harney joined the National Union of the Working Classes early in 1833. Harney was imprisoned three times (twice in London, at Coldbath Fields Prison and the Borough Compter, and once in Derby Gaol) for selling unstamped newspapers. From the dock at Derby, Harney is reported as having said:
"These laws were not made by him or his ancestors, and therefore he was not bound to obey them. The government of Lord Castlereagh, of notorious memory, was the author of the laws against the press, but the Whigs, who had strenuously opposed their enactment, were now the parties to enforce them. In spite, however, of all their efforts, he declared that knowledge should be untaxed. He had already been imprisoned for selling these papers, and was ready to go to prison again, and his place would be supplied by another person devoted to the cause. He defied the government to put down the unstamped ... He had no goods to be destrained upon, and if he had, neither his majesty or any of his minions should have them."’Derby Mercury, 24 February 1836. Quoted in Schoyen (1958), ibidem, pp. 9-10.
This experience had clearly radicalised Harney and his defiant and irascible tone in the fight against Taxes on Knowledge is unmistakable, it led to him receiving a severe punishment of a fine of £20 or six months’ imprisonment. He had served three prison terms before he was nineteen years old. Although he was initially a member of the London Working Men's Association he became impatient with the organisation's failure to make much progress in the efforts to obtain universal suffrage. Harney was influenced by the more militant ideas of William Benbow and Feargus O'Connor. His greatest intellectual influence was the Irishman James Bronterre O'Brien (1805-1864), the so-called "schoolmaster of Chartism";Michael J. Turner, "Revolutionary Connection: “The Incorruptible” Maximilian Robespierre and the “Schoolmaster of Chartism” Bronterre O’Brien.", in: Historian, 75(2), 2013, 237–261. Bronterre saw distinct parallels between the revolutionary events in France of 1791 and in England in 1832. He published a translation in 1836 of the Italian writer Philippe Buonarroti's History of Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality, as well as a revisionist reading of the "Life & Character of Maximilian Robespierre" (London, 1837).The life and character of Maximilian Robespierre : proving by facts and arguments, that that much-calumniated person was one of the greatest men, and one of the purest and most enlightened reformers, that ever existed in the world: also containing Robespierre's principal discourses, addresses, reports, and projects of law, &c., in the National assembly, National convention, Commune of Paris, and the popular societies; with the author's reflections on the principal events and leading men of the French revolution, etc., etc., etc. London: J. Watson, 15, City Road, Finsbury Square. https://archive.org/details/lifecharacterofm00obri/page/n3/mode/2up According to Alfred Plummer, all of these were first published in instalments in the respective newspapers.Alfred Plummer "The Place of Bronterre O'Brien in the Working-Class Movement", in: The Economic History Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Jan., 1929), pp. 61-80.
In January 1837 Harney became one of the founders of the openly republican East London Democratic Association. Soon afterwards Harney became convinced of William Benbow's theory that a Grand National Holiday (a General strike) would result in an uprising and a change in the political system.
Involvement with Chartist movement Harney attended the first National Convention of the Chartists that met on Monday, 4 February 1839, at the British Coffee House, 27, Cockspur Street, London. There were seventy-one delegates.Thomas Milton Kemnitz "The Chartist Convention of 1839", in: Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies Vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer, 1978), p. 152. Harney, together with Robert Lowery and Dr. John Taylor was a delegate for Newcastle upon Tyne. Harney and William Benbow convinced the delegates to call a Grand National Holiday on 12 August. Feargus O'Connor argued against the plan but was defeated. Harney and Benbow toured the country in an attempt to persuade workers to join the strike. When Harney and Benbow were both arrested at the end of July and charged with making seditious speeches, the General Strike was called off. A. R. Schoyen has given a wonderful example (from 1839) of the perceived seditious nature in some of Harney's speeches: "Our Country may be compared to a bedstead full of nasty, filthy, crawling Aristocratic and Shopocratic bugs. In answer to our calumniators who say we wish to destroy property, I answer that we will not destroy the bedstead, but we will annihilate the bugs."Schoyen, Victorian Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Sep., 1960), p. 67.(Review)
A further example in the same year was at Derby: "We demand Universal Suffrage, because we believe the universal suffrage will bring universal happiness. Time was when every Englishman had a musket in his cottage, and along with it hung a flitch of bacon; now there was no flitch of bacon for there was no musket; let the musket be restored and the flitch of bacon would soon follow. You will get nothing from your tyrants but what you can take, and you can take nothing unless you are properly prepared to do so. In the words of a good man, then, I say 'Arm for peace, arm for liberty, arm for justice, arm for the rights of all, and the tyrants will no longer laugh at your petitions'. Remember that."George Julian Harney, speech at Derby, 28th January 1839, quoted by John Simkin, "George Julian Harney" http://www.spartacus-educational.com/CHharney.htm
Harney was kept in Warwick Gaol. "on 13th August 1839, George Julian Harney wrote from Warwick Gaol saying that he could not obtain bail and had no funds to pay the expenses of lawyers and witnesses. When, two days later, bail had been found and he was released, he could not return to London as he was still ‘completely pennyless"A. Plummer, Bronterre: A Political Biography of Bronterre O'Brien, 1804-1864 (Toronto, 1971), p.98. When he appeared at Birmingham Assizes the grand jury refused to indict him of sedition or any other charge.Dorothy Thompson, The Dignity of Chartism (2015) chapter 9.
After his acquittal he spent almost a year in Scotland, and in September 1840 married Mary Cameron, of Mauchline, Ayrshire, "'tall, beautiful, and of high spirit' (Holyoake) and the daughter of a radical weaver. It was a meeting of minds and an immensely happy union (although there were to be no children)."David Goodway, ODNB (2004) Harney's exile did not last long and the following year he became the Chartist organiser in Sheffield. During the strikes of 1842, Harney was one of the 58 Chartists arrested "for taking part in a Convention at Manchester" and tried at Lancaster in March 1843. After his conviction was reversed on appeal, Harney became a journalist for O'Connor's Northern Star. Two years later he became the editor of the newspaper.Thompson, The Dignity of Chartism (2015) ch 9.
Tristram Hunt describes him during this period:George Julian Harney, Chartism's enfant terrible ... was firmly on the radical side of the movement, advocating the use of physical force and enjoying riling his conservative comrades by flaunting the red cap of liberty at public meetings. In and out of jail, endlessly feuding with fellow Chartists, and ultimately expelled from the party, the Robespierre-admiring Harney remained convinced that insurrection was the surest route to achieve the demands of the charter.Tristram Hunt, Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (Henry Holt and Co., 2009: ), p. 90.
According to Dorothy Thompson, Harney: is a particularly good figure to take as central to the study of Chartism. For five years (1845–50) he was the editor of the Northern Star. He was one of the few leading figures who entered the movement in its earliest days–coming in straight from an active part in the dramatic and principled fight against the stamp duties on newspapers which is one of the highlights of 19th century radical action–and remained active throughout the years of its mass influence.Thompson, The Dignity of Chartism (2015) chapter 9 p. 111
Association with Marx and Engels Harney became interested in the international struggle for universal suffrage and helped establish the Fraternal Democrats in September 1845. In conversation Harney told Edward Aveling: "I knew Engels, he was my friend and occasional correspondent over half a century. It was in 1843 that he came over from Bradford to Leeds and enquired for me at the Northern Star office. A tall, handsome young man, with a countenance of almost boyish youthfulness, whose English, in spite of his German birth and education, was even then remarkable for its accuracy. He told me he was a constant reader of the Northern Star and took a keen interest in the Chartist movement. Thus began our friendship over fifty years ago."Aveling (1897), p.442. Engels, then aged 23, was collecting material for his book "The Condition of the Working Class in England". The Marx-Engels archives in Amsterdam holds 110 letters Harney wrote to Frederick Engels over the years from 1849 to 1895. Engels’ own letters are not extant.Peter Cadogan "Harney and Engels", in: International Review of Social History, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1965), p. 67. Harney persuaded both men to write articles for the Northern Star. The first article written by Engels was "Progress of Communism in Germany. Persecution of Swiss Communists" (9 December 1843). There is a comprehensive list of all the articles that Engels wrote for The Northern Star between 1843 and 1849. The first article written by Marx and Engels together was the "Address of the German Democratic Communists of Brussels To Mr. Feargus O'Connor" (17 July 1846). Harney first met Marx in November 1847. Excited by the continental revolutions of 1848, Harney travelled to Paris in March 1848 to meet members of the provisional government.
According to his friend and fellow radical, John Bedford Leno, Harney was:
"more conversant with foreign politics than any man I ever knew, and the first inquiries made by foreign refugees on landing on our shores was to forward the discovery of his whereabouts."
Involvement with socialism Harney was now a Socialist and he used the Northern Star to promote this philosophy. O'Connor, the newspaper's owner, disagreed with socialism and he pressurized Harney into resigning as editor. Harney now formed his own newspaper, the Red Republican. With the help of his friend, Ernest Charles Jones, Harney attempted to use his paper to educate his working class readers about socialism and proletarian internationalism. In 1847 Harney stood as the Chartist candidate against Lord Palmerston for the seat of Tiverton, an event described by Engels in an article for La Reforme thus: