Capper, Joseph
1788-1860

Chartistand PM local preacher. Born near Nantwich, Cheshire in 1788, he later moved to Tunstall and was converted at the first Mow Cop Camp Meeting. Unusually, neither his Chartism nor his Primitive Methodism arose from poverty. Described as 'a sort of saintly John Bull', he was a powerful preacher and popular radical orator. Following the Plug Plot disturbances in 1842 he was charged with sedition and conspiracy and sentenced to two years' imprisonment at Stafford, where he testified that his only consolation was that 'no one could deprive him of communion with his Saviour'. He later became a prominent agitator against the 'papal aggression' of 1850. He died on 10 January 1860.

Sources
  • C. Shaw , When I was a Child (1903) pp.141-54; 172-81
  • Frederick Harper, Joseph Capper (1962)
  • Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists (Aldershot, 1984) p.197

Entry written by: JAH
Category: Person
Comment on this entry