Thomas Attwood

Born Oct. 6, 1783, in Halesowen; died Mar. 6, 1856, in Great Malvern. English political figure; radical. Banker.

Attwood headed the so-called Birmingham Political Union, which played a prominent role in the struggle for the electoral reform of 1832 that increased the representation of the industrial bourgeoisie in Parliament. He was a member of Parliament from 1832 to 1839. In 1839 he introduced the Chartist petition in Parliament. In his efforts to bring the mass popular movement under bourgeois influence, Attwood opposed the revolutionary wing of Chartism and soon withdrew from the Chartist movement.