We don't know when William Cuffay was born, so we must mark the day of his death instead. At one time leader of the biggest political party Britain has ever seen, Cuffay - four feet eleven inches tall, a tailor, trade unionist, political prisoner - died in a poorhouse on the other side of the world on July 29th 1870 (although even that date is not universally accepted).
Cuffay (variously spelt Cuffy and Cuffey), born in 1788, was raised in Kent. His mother was a local girl, and his father a freed slave from St Kitts who arrived in England as a ship's cook. William's deformed spine and legs don't seem to have interfered with his childhood much; all recollections of him are of a lively, friendly, cheerful boy who enjoyed the same rough-and-tumble pastimes as his siblings.
In his teens, he became apprenticed to a tailor and made a success of that trade. There's no sign of political consciousness in Cuffay's early life, not until the London tailors' strike of 1834, demanding shorter working hours. The strike was lost and the employers acted to crush any further rebellions. William was amongst those blacklisted from working in the industry.
Even then, this studious, middle-aged, married man's radicalism seems to have grown slowly. It was 1842 before Cuffay became of national note as a trade unionist and supporter of Chartism, the mass political movement which campaigned for democracy. He ascended to leadership by the traditional route - being elected to replace leaders who had been jailed. Most of us might think of lurking in the loo until the nominations were safely out of the way, but William Cuffay was known for his quiet bravery.
Cuffay belonged to the militant left of Chartism, and his growing prominence and national popularity horrified the established powers. The Times began referring to the Chartists as "the black man and his party," while also noting his "perfectly ridiculous appearance." They seemed to find both his colour and his stature offensive - though neither irritated them as much as his humble origins - but even The Times had to admit the man had style: "The prisoner, on leaving the dock, exclaimed 'Well, good day, gentlemen,' with a degree of firmness that was extremely well affected."
The press of the day used other terms to condemn Cuffay (some of which I would not feel comfortable reproducing here) but the overall aim, still familiar to 21st century readers, was to portray "the comic Cuffey" as either a joke, or a menace, or preferably both. The Standard savaged him as "the little wretched black and white delegate," while the Victorian equivalent of what we would now call centrism was in charge of patronising him, always referring to him as "poor Cuffy," and stressing that he was a uniquely kind and honest man - just not terribly bright; a charming child, really, what with being black and small and working-class and everything.
The Chartist pro-democracy petition to parliament in 1842 carried about three million signatures, out of a UK population of around 18.5 million. Its casual rejection led to a wave of strikes and protests which met a ruthless response from the state. Hundreds of Chartists were sent for trial on various political charges.
Cuffay was arrested in 1848, and on the evidence of police spies was found guilty of "conspiring to levy war against the Queen." The sentence was transportation to Australia for life. His colleagues presented him with a volume of Lord Byron's poetry, which survives, to comfort him on the long journey. The inscription says it is "a token of their sincere regard and affection for his genuine patriotism and moral worth." Allowed to resume his work as a tailor (and eventually given a free pardon in 1856), he also continued his political activities, becoming almost as famous amongst Australian reformers as he had been in Britain.
The Chartists were a lively lot, known for cultural activities including tea parties, at which members would dance until dawn to brass bands. Cuffay was much admired as a singer and musician, as well as an orator. It was his personality as well as his policies which won him such widespread admiration.
His third wife died in 1869; Cuffay, no longer able to work, moved to a poorhouse and died a few months later. One of the many obituaries noted that, although he was now old, poor and half-forgotten, his grave in Tasmania had been specially marked in case, one day, "sympathisers should desire to place a memorial stone on the spot."
Cuffy was itself a rude word meaning a black person, prompting one Chartist in his memoirs to recall "a small black man bearing the absurd name of Cuffy - a name, however derived or acquired, he foolishly retained, though continually ridiculed by adversaries because of the appellation." I don't think he did "foolishly retain" it; from everything we know of Cuffay, of his unconquerable optimism and perseverance, and his ever-present smile, I suspect he bore the name proudly because it was the one his parents had handed down to him, and if other people had a problem with it - well, they were the ones with the problem.
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Sources:
William Cuffay by Martin Hoyles (Hansib 2013)
Perish the privileged orders by Mark O'Brien (New Clarion Press 2009)
www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-economic-history-of-modern-britain/british-population-during-the-long-eighteenth-century-16801840/45A696E146D5CB76C160C488F05C377D
https://phm.org.uk/blogposts/william-cuffay-black-chartism-and-a-treasured-object/