At an open-air public meeting in an East London cemetery in 1986 Desmond Greaves gave a commemorative lecture on the Chartist leader Bronterre O’Brien. The Chartist campaign for universal suffrage is the central theme of his talk. Greaves describes how the Chartists influenced personalities such as Daniel O’Connell and Karl Marx. He emphasises the impact which a cataclysmic event like the French Revolution can have on the drive for social change and makes some contemporary points regarding democracy and the drive for EU integration.
