Chartism was an important movement in the early Victorian period. Chartists demanded the reform of the way Members of Parliament were elected. They wanted changes to the rules governing who was allowed to vote in elections.

At the time only those men who owned a certain size of property were allowed to vote. This map shows one of the ideas the Chartists tried.

An estate of houses was built as shown here, each house was allocated to individuals or families by a lottery system. Each house was worth enough to give those living in it the right to vote.

Unfortunately, the overall plan did not work because the people who moved into the houses had little experience of farming and it turned out that the amount of land they were given was not enough to support a family anyway. The central image clearly shows the ideal lifestyle that was the goal when the estate was set up.