O'CONNOR, FEARGUS EDWARD Chart ist leader, was the son of the Irish Nationalist politician Roger O'Connor. He entered parliament as M.P. for Cork and a fol lower of O'Connell in 1832; but three years later the "Liberator" had him unseated, by petition, for his indiscipline. He then turned to Radical agitation in England and on the publication of the Charter in 1838 became one of the best known Chartist leaders. Owing to his rough humour, his energy and his invective he be came their most popular speaker, and the circulation of his journal, the Northern Star, outstripped all others. He advocated physical force, generally, however, with the proviso that moral force must be tried first, and at the Chartist convention of 1839 acquiesced on William Lovett's "moral force" leadership. Although not con cerned in the insurrection of 1839 he was imprisoned for a year upon another charge. In 1841 he reorganized the movement by the foundation of the National Charter Association, and attained a position of such power that he was able practically to expel or silence Lovett and all others who advocated compromise with the middle class. But though he raised Chartism to its greatest power he was unable to direct it to victory. He permitted the
general strike of 1842; in the midst of it his fears overcame him and he condemned it, securing its immediate defeat. After this fiasco he diverted Chartist energies to the support of his land company scheme for settling town workers on small holdings.
For a while this appeared successful, and a first settlement, named O'Connorville, was opened at Herringsgate, Bucks. He was also elected M.P. for Nottingham in 1847. Next year, however, the company was found to be bankrupt, and the ignominious collapse of the revolutionary agitation of that year, to which he had pinned his hopes, made O'Connor's behaviour, already eccentric, plainly maniacal. He was, very belatedly, declared insane in 1852 and died in 1855. His funeral procession, 50,000 strong to Kensal Green, may be regarded as the last Chartist demonstration.
O'Connor was a tall, loud-voiced, handsome man, of unlimited devotion and energy and great oratorical powers; he was, however, vacillating, excessively vain, jealous and of small intellectual powers. (See CHARTISM.) (R. W. P.)