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The Great Rising
The rioters were then reported as having rescued the parties that had been apprehended, "nearly killed the police officers," turned the landlord and his family out of the house, and completely ransacked the whole place. They even went so far as to "run a spike through the hat of the resident magistrate." In the face of this threat to the British Crown, the Montgomeryshire Militia were ordered to hold themselves ready to act, and if necessary, the South Salopian Yeomanry "will be instantly marched to the neighbourhood."
In May, The Cambrian reported on an anti-Chartist meeting held the previous month, chaired by Crawshay Bailey (the iron master of Dowlais, in the Merthyr District, who had fortified his mansion against possible assaults from his own workers). It seems that many of the iron masters were terrified of the new radical movements that were spreading throughout the valleys. They were determined to show their strength.
Bailey praised his efforts at bringing work to the valleys. Other speeches by iron-masters and coal owners then took place in similar vein, some in English, some in Welsh, but all speaking out against the evils of Chartism, praising the goodness of the British Constitution, and stressing the need for loyalty. The speakers contrasted "the happy, well-fed, well-housed working classes of Britain" with those of such countries as Canada or France, where "revolution or Roman Catholicism or laziness or dishonesty had caused butchery and inhumanity."
There were voices in Wales, however, that did not lavish such praise on the workers. Williams Jones, for example, saw conditions in the Valleys from a much different viewpoint than that of the well-fed, extravagantly rich iron and coal masters. In 1841 he wrote:
Merthyr, the Gehenna of Wales, where
black beings dwell, amidst fire and smoke,
who dive into deep caverns, where opportunities
are afforded them to concoct their
treasonable designs against the inhabitants
of the upper world.
While the coal owners and iron masters lived lives of luxury in their splendid mansions: their workers toiled in squalor in row upon row of squat cottages, without adequate supplies of water or means of sanitation. A government report, which looked at life in the Valleys, condemned the state of education in Wales and towns and put the blame on the employers; one of the commissioners wrote:
I regard the degraded condition [of the people of
Monmouthshire] as entirely the fault of their
employers, who give them far less tendance and
care than they bestow on their cattle, and who
with few exceptions, use and regard them as so
much brute force instrumental to wealth, but as
nowise involving claims on human sympathy.
Many of the working population agreed with such sentiments and turned their backs on the hated factory owners and mine. They put their trust in their Chartist leaders such as Henry Vincent, John Frost, Hugh Williams, Charles Jones, Zephania Williams and John Rees, all of whom pressed for revolutionary activity following the government's complete refusal to consider the six points of the Charter presented on June 14, 1839. These were simple enough: universal male suffrage, vote by ballot, equal electoral districts, annual parliaments, abolition of the property qualifications for election to Parliament, and payment for members (so that it could be open to all classes).
Rather than consider such radical ideas, and to safeguard their positions of privilege in Parliament, the government took measures to suppress the movement, ruthlessly if necessary. Many of those who had taken part in the earlier riot at Llanidloes were found guilty and deported for life. Undeterred, workers throughout the country joined in the protests, though their efforts were at first spasmodic and unorganized. Far more serious events were about to take place in the port town of Newport, on the southeastern edge of the south Wales coalfield, and the site chosen for a monster Chartist rally.
In May 1839, the Cambrian contained a lengthy report of the arrival of the military. Fearing some kind of massive disturbance to the public order, the Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire had sent a division of "the gallant 29th" from Bristol. According to the authorities, his fears were justified: in November came the Newport Rising.
According to The Cambrian, up to 5,000 armed rioters "from the hills" (Ebbw Vale and surrounding districts) entered Newport in three columns, one being commanded by John Frost. In a heavy rainstorm, they marched to the Westgate Hotel, where a small detachment of military waited inside. Accounts of what happened next vary, but it appears that someone opened fire on the soldiers, who responded with a volley into the crowd. It was a repeat of Merthyr all over again.
In the ensuing panic, mass confusion reigned; a score of workers were killed and many more wounded; the bewildered crowd scattered in all direction, most of them fled back into the hills, the first shattering volley from the troops having brought this particular rebellion to a violent and speedy end.
Chapter 16 Continued
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