Mary Barton recap

Mary Barton, the daughter of an impoverished Manchester worker, is courted by both engineer Jem Wilson and wealthy mill owner's son Harry Carson. She first dreams of rising through Harry, rejects Jem, and then realizes that Harry does not intend marriage and that she loves Jem. Amid depression and a failed Chartist appeal, her father John becomes radicalized. Chosen to retaliate against the masters, he kills Harry with Jem's pistol, causing Jem to be arrested after a public quarrel made him look guilty. Esther finds evidence that points Mary toward the truth. Mary races to Liverpool to summon sailor Will Wilson, who can prove Jem's alibi; he reaches the trial in time, and Jem is acquitted. John confesses to Harry's father and receives forgiveness before dying. Mary and Jem marry and emigrate to Canada, where Jem prospers as an engineer and they establish the secure family life denied to them in Manchester.

In industrial Manchester, mill workers John Barton and George Wilson share a close friendship between their families. John's sister-in-law Esther has disappeared, a loss that helps deepen his fear that beauty and ambition can expose a poor young woman to exploitation. After John's wife dies, he raises their daughter Mary alone. Years pass, and Mary becomes a seamstress. Jem Wilson, George's son, loves her and hopes his work as an engineer and inventor will support a future together. Mary values Jem but imagines escaping poverty through a richer marriage. Her circle also includes the singer Margaret Legh, Margaret's naturalist grandfather Job, and the devout Alice Wilson. A fire at Carson's mill brings workers and owners into the same crisis and introduces Mary to Harry Carson, the owner's attractive son.

Trade depression leaves many Manchester workers unemployed and hungry. John Barton and George Wilson discover Ben Davenport dying in a filthy cellar while his family lacks food and fuel. They seek help from the Carson household, whose comfort appears painfully remote from the suffering around the mills. George's own family is struck by illness and death, adding private grief to the wider distress. Jem proposes marriage to Mary, but she rejects him because she is secretly meeting Harry Carson and still imagines becoming a wealthy man's wife. Jem is devastated. John travels to London as part of a Chartist delegation hoping to present the workers' petition, but Parliament refuses to receive it. He returns embittered by the contrast between the urgency of the poor and the indifference he believes he has encountered.

Esther reappears and tries to warn John that Mary may be endangered by the same kind of unequal relationship that ruined her own life, but John drives her away without hearing her fully. Harry Carson's intentions become clearer: he desires Mary but does not plan the honorable marriage she has imagined. Mary finally recognizes the danger and also understands that she truly loves Jem. Sailor Will Wilson visits his family and grows close to Margaret. Esther separately appeals to Jem to protect Mary. Jem confronts Harry, and their hostility erupts into a public fight that witnesses remember. At the same time, masters and workers meet over the labor dispute. Harry treats the delegates with contempt and sketches a mocking caricature, intensifying the workers' anger when negotiation fails.

The workers decide on violent retaliation, and John Barton leaves home on a secret night errand. Harry Carson is shot dead, and suspicion quickly falls on Jem: he had fought with Harry, appeared jealous over Mary, and a pistol connected to him supplies physical evidence. Jem is arrested and committed for trial. Mary is horrified by the charge and certain of his innocence, but clues force her to confront a worse possibility about her father. Esther brings Mary a scrap of paper recovered near the murder scene. It came from a message associated with Jem that Mary had once given her father, indicating that John, not Jem, used it in loading the weapon. Mary cannot denounce her father, yet she resolves to save Jem by finding an independent alibi.

Mary remembers that Jem spent the crucial period with Will Wilson and that Will can establish his whereabouts. A subpoena is obtained, but Will has returned to his ship in Liverpool and is about to sail. While Alice Wilson lies dying and Jem's mother moves between grief and suspicion, Mary travels alone to Liverpool. The unfamiliar docks and rigid sailing schedules make reaching Will extremely difficult. With help from people she meets there, she pursues his vessel after it has left its berth and manages to communicate that Jem's life depends on his testimony. Will agrees to come back with a pilot boat if he can, but Mary must return to face the trial without knowing whether the one witness who can clear Jem will arrive in time.

A grand jury sends Jem's case to trial. Job Legh tries to protect the exhausted Mary from despair while legal preparations continue. In court, the prosecution builds a strong circumstantial case from Jem's quarrel with Harry, his apparent romantic motive, and the weapon. Mary is compelled to testify and openly reveals that she loves Jem, but she cannot provide the alibi herself. Will Wilson reaches the court at the last possible stage and swears that Jem was with him when the murder occurred. His evidence breaks the prosecution's timeline, and the jury acquits Jem. The immediate danger is over, although the ordeal leaves Mary seriously ill and does not explain publicly who actually killed Harry Carson.

After Jem's acquittal, Mary recovers and the two acknowledge their love. John Barton returns physically and emotionally ruined by what he has done. He confesses to Mr. Carson that the workers selected him to retaliate against the masters and that he shot Harry. Carson arrives intent on vengeance, but reflection on Christian mercy and an encounter that recalls universal grief lead him to forgive the dying man. John dies after the reconciliation, and Esther also dies after her long exclusion from respectable life. Though cleared of murder, Jem finds his English prospects constrained by the accusation. He and Mary marry and emigrate to Canada with Mrs. Wilson. Jem succeeds as an engineer, and the couple build a comfortable home and have a child. Job Legh later visits them, linking their new security with the Manchester community they left behind.

Will Wilson reaches court in time to confirm that Jem was with him when Harry Carson was killed, and Jem is acquitted. Mary collapses after the strain of the trial, but she and Jem are finally free to acknowledge their love. John Barton, meanwhile, returns broken by guilt. He meets Mr. Carson and confesses that he murdered Harry as the chosen instrument of the workers' retaliation. Carson initially wants only punishment, but an encounter with a child and the demands of Christian forgiveness alter his response. He forgives John, who dies soon afterward in Carson's arms. Esther also dies, isolated and exhausted. Jem's prospects in England remain damaged despite his acquittal, so he and Mary emigrate to Canada, where he finds success as an engineer. They marry, have a child, and make a secure home; Mrs. Wilson lives with them, while Job Legh later visits and carries news between their new life and Manchester.