William Cuffay

William Cuffay was the son of a former and a leading figure in the Chartist movement, the first mass popular political movement in Britain. 

He was born on a merchant ship in the West Indies in 1788, the son of a naval cook and former slave.  His family later settled in Chatham, Kent where Cuffay became a journeyman tailor but lost his job when the new tailors' union went on strike in 1834.

Furious at the way he had been treated and convinced that workers needed to be represented in parliament, he became involved in the struggle for universal suffrage. In 1839, he helped to form the Metropolitan Tailors' Charter Association. He was elected to the national executive of the National Charter Association in 1842 and later that year voted president of the London Chartists. Cuffay's significance is illustrated by a contemporary report in The Times which referred to 'the black man and his party’.

During 1848 Cuffay was one of three London delegates at the National Chartists Convention and was considered one of its most militant leaders. In the summer of 1848 Cuffay became involved in a conspiracy to lead an armed uprising against the government. Based on the evidence of a government spy, Cuffay was arrested and convicted for preparing to set fire to certain buildings as a signal for an uprising. He was sentenced to be transported to Tasmania for 21 years.

Three years later all political prisoners in Tasmania were pardoned but Cuffay decided to remain, carrying on his trade as a tailor and again becoming involved in radical politics and trade union issues. He played an important role in persuading the authorities to amend the Master and Servant Law in the colony, before dying in poverty in July 1870.