William Cuffay

William Cuffay
Born	1788 Medway Towns, Kent, England
Died	1870 Tasmania
Nationality	United Kingdom

William Cuffay (1788 – July 1870) was a Chartist leader in early Victorian London.

Cuffay was mixed race; the son of a Gillingham, Kent woman Juliana Fox and a black man Chatham Cuffey who was previously enslaved and originally from Saint Kitts (then a British colony). He was born in 1788 in Old Brompton, an area of the Medway Towns that is now in Gillingham. He was apprenticed to a tailor, and later worked for Matthews and Acworth, on Chatham High Street. Cuffay was short, being 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) in height. He moved to London in about 1819 and was married three times. His one daughter Ann Juliana Cuffay was baptised at St Mary Magdalenes Church, Gillingham.

Cuffay rejected the Owenite trade unions of the London tailors. He went on strike with his fellow tailors in 1834, demanding a ten-hour day between April to July and an eight-hour day during the rest of the year with pay of 6 shillings and 5 pence a day. The strike collapsed, Cuffay was sacked and subsequently blacklisted from working. In 1839, Cuffay helped to form the Metropolitan Tailors' Charter Association. He was elected first to the Chartist Metropolitan Delegate Council in 1841 and onto the National Executive in 1842.

Cuffay was one of the organisers of the large Chartist rally on Kennington Common on 10 April 1848, but was dismayed by the timidity of other leaders, who had rejected the idea that the rally should be a show of force. Cuffay's radical faction soon became involved in plans for a display of "physical force".

Betrayed by a government spy, Cuffay was arrested and accused of "conspiring to levy war" against Queen Victoria. Defended by eminent barrister John Walter Huddleston, he was convicted of preparing acts of arson, intended as a signal for the planned armed uprising. Sentenced to 21 years penal transportation, Cuffay spent the rest of his life in Tasmania.

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