Newport Rising

Newport Rising
The attack of the Chartists on the Westgate Hotel
Date 4 November 1839 Location Newport, Wales Result Rising defeated Rising leaders arrested
Belligerents
Chartists	Newport Council Newport Borough Police British Army
Commanders and leaders
John Frost Zephaniah Williams William Jones	Thomas Phillips  (WIA)
Units involved
	45th Regiment of Foot
Strength
1,000–5,000	60 soldiers 500 special constables
Casualties and losses
10–24 dead 50+ wounded	4 wounded

The Newport Rising was the last large-scale armed rising in

The origins of Chartism in Wales can be traced to the foundation in the autumn of 1836 of Carmarthen Working Men's Association.^[2]

Among the factors that precipitated the rising were the House of Commons' rejection of the first Chartist petition for democracy, in the People's Charter of 1838 (which called for universal suffrage, secret ballot, a salary for MPs, giving those who did not own property the right to vote, etc.) on 12 July 1839, and the conviction of the Chartist Henry Vincent for unlawful assembly and conspiracy on 2 August.^[3]

Some kind of rising had been in preparation for a few months and the march had been gathering momentum over the course of the whole weekend, as John Frost and his associates led their followers down from the industrialised valley towns to the north of Newport. Some of the miners who joined the rising had armed themselves with home-made

A column was headed by Frost who led it into Newport from the west,

Rumours of a possible Chartist rising and alleged violence elsewhere, following the earlier arrest of Chartist leader

Climax of the Rising

It is estimated that nearly 10,000 Chartist sympathisers marched on the town.^[4] The Chartists were convinced that some of their fellows had been imprisoned at the Westgate Hotel. Filing quickly down the steep Stow Hill, the Chartists arrived at the small square in front of the hotel at about 9.30 am. It is unclear whether the Chartists knew that the hotel was defended by soldiers, who had only arrived at the hotel shortly before their march on the town began.

The flash point came when the Chartists, who had surrounded the hotel arranged in regular order, demanded the release of those imprisoned inside, when one side or the other (it is not known which) began firing. A brief, violent and bloody battle ensued. The soldiers defending the hotel despite being greatly outnumbered by the large and very angry crowd, had vastly superior firepower. As many as 80 shots were fired by the Chartists into the hotel, and the Chartists did manage to enter the building temporarily, but were forced to retreat in disarray.^[5] After a fiercely fought battle, lasting approximately half an hour, between 10 and 24 of their number had been killed and upwards of 50 had been wounded.

Amongst the defenders of the hotel, Mayor Thomas Phillips was badly wounded, shot in the arm and groin whilst calling on the Chartists to lay down their arms,^[6] and one soldier was seriously hurt, along with two of the special constables.^[7] Another of the defenders, Sergeant James Daily, had received six slugs to the head.^[5] As the chartists fled they abandoned many of their weapons, a selection of which can still be seen in Newport Museum.

Some of the Chartist dead were buried in St. Woolos parish church (now Newport Cathedral) in the town where there is still a plaque to their memory. An urban myth persists that some of the bullet holes from the skirmish remained in the masonry of the hotel entrance porch until well into modern times. In reality the Westgate Hotel has been rebuilt since the uprising. The "bullet holes" may be bomb damage from the Second World War.

Who opened fire at the Westgate Hotel?

Sources differ as to who opened fire first, and for what reason. Edward Patton, a carpenter who gave testimony at the trial of John Frost and who claimed not to be a Chartist but instead merely an observer present at the scene to "see what happened", claimed that he did not know who fired first, but that it was "likely enough that firing began from inside the Westgate Hotel". R.G. Gammage, a Chartist who disapproved of violence, claimed in his 1854 history of the Chartist movement that some of the crowd had fired through the windows before the soldiers returned their fire.^[8] Thomas Bevan Oliver, a special constable guarding the door of the hotel, claimed that he had bumped the door against the gun of one of the Chartists, accidentally discharging it.^[5]

Aftermath

In the aftermath 200 or more Chartists were arrested for being involved and twenty-one were charged with

Testimonies exist from contemporaries, such as the Yorkshire Chartist Ben Wilson, that a successful rising at Newport was to have been the signal for a national uprising. Older histories suggested that Chartism slipped into a period of internal division after Newport. In fact the movement was remarkably buoyant (and remained so until late 1842). Initially, while the majority of Chartists, under the leadership of Feargus O'Connor, concentrated on petitioning for Frost, Williams and Jones to be pardoned, significant minorities in Sheffield, East End of London and Bradford planned their own risings in response. Samuel Holberry led an aborted rising in Sheffield on 12 January; police action thwarted a major disturbance in the East End of London on 14 January, and on 26 January a few hundred Bradford Chartists staged a rising in the hope of precipitating a domino effect across the country.^[10] After this Chartism turned to a process of internal renewal and more systematic organisation, but the transported and imprisoned Newport Chartists were regarded as heroes and martyrs amongst workers.

Meanwhile, the Establishment and middle classes became convinced that the rising meant all Chartists were dangerously violent. Newport Mayor Thomas Phillips was proclaimed a national hero for his part in crushing the rising and was knighted by Queen Victoria barely six weeks later.

Frost himself was eventually given an unconditional pardon in 1856 and allowed to return to Britain, receiving a triumphant welcome in Newport.^[11] But he never lived in Newport again, settling instead in Stapleton near Bristol, where he continued to publish articles advocating reform until his death, aged 93, in 1877.

Commemoration

Interest in the Newport Rising was kept alive through occasional articles in the Monmouthshire Merlin and South Wales Argus.^[12] In 1939, to commemorate the centenary of the Rising, Newport Borough Council erected a plaque on the Post Office building near the birthplace of John Frost. In the 1960s, redevelopment of Newport led to the creation of a central square which was named John Frost Square. The Chartist mural (see below) was situated in an underpass leading to the square. Newport Museum has a display relating to the uprising which includes homemade weapons. In 1991 three statues, 'Union, Prudence, Energy' by Christopher Kelly, commemorating the uprising were installed on Commercial Street at the front of the Westgate Hotel. In 2015 it was announced that Duffryn High School was to be renamed John Frost School. An annual 'Chartist Convention' is held in the city.

Commemorative sites in other communities includes a 26 ft tall statue of a Chartist designed by Sebastian Boyson, erected by Caerphilly County Borough Council near the Chartist Bridge at Blackwood. The Shire Hall in Monmouth, scene of the Chartist trial in 1840, has a preserved courtroom and displays relating to the trial. A plaque commemorating the departure of Frost, Williams and Jones from Chepstow by ship to Portsmouth on the first stage of their transportation voyage is situated on the Chepstow river front.

John Frost Square mural

In the 1960s, as part of a redevelopment scheme, a new square was named

• James Augustus St John
  's 1843 novel Sir Cosmo Digby, a novel of the Monmouthshire Riots
• Alexander Cordell's 1959 novel Rape of the Fair Country
• Vivien Annis Bailey's 1995 novel Children of Rebecca published by Honno
  ISBN 1-870206-17-7

The track "Ballad of Solomon Jones" by Jon Langford on albums Skull Orchard Revisited (2011) and The Legend of LL (2015) is partially set during the Newport Rising.

The track “The View from Stow Hill” on the 2014 Manic Street Preachers album Futurology was written by bassist Nicky Wire based on the events of the Newport Rising.

The 2016

In August 2019, in the BBC TV series Who Do You Think You Are?, Thomas Jones Phillips, a solicitor at the time of the Rising, was revealed to be an ancestor of TV producer Michael Whitehall and of his son, actor and comedian Jack Whitehall.^[20][21]

In August 2022, the Welsh ragga metal band Dub War released the album Westgate Under Fire, inspired by the events of the Newport Rising.

Further reading

• Davies, James (1981), The Chartist Movement in Monmouthshire, The Starling Press,
  ISBN 0 903434 45 8
• ISBN 0 521 40496 7
• Hammond, J.L. and Hammond, Barbara (1930). The Age of the Chartists 1832–1854. A Study of Discontent. Longmans, Green and Co.
• Harrison, David J. Monmouth and the Chartists
• Harrison, J.F.C. and Thompson, Dorothy (1978). Bibliography of the Chartist Movement, 1837–1976, The Harvester Press,
  ISBN 0 85527 334 8
• Humphries, John, The Man from the Alamo – why the Welsh Chartist Uprising of 1839 ended in a massacre (2004), Wales Books (Glyndwr Publishing),
  ISBN 1 903529 14 X
• Johns, W.N. (1889). The Chartist Riots at Newport, W.N. Johns.
• Jones, David (1975). Chartism and the Chartists, Allen Lane,
  ISBN 0 7139 0921 8
• Jones, David V.J. (1999). The Last Rising: The Newport Chartist Insurrection of 1839, University of Wales Press,
  ISBN 978 0 7083 1451 7 ([1]
  )
• ISBN 0 85117 229 6
• Warner, John and Gunn, W.A. (1939). John Frost and the Chartist Movement in Monmouthshire. Catalogue of Chartist Literature, Prints and Relics etc., Newport Public Libraries, Museum and Art Gallery. Newport Chartist Centenary Committee.
• Wilks, Ivor (1989). South Wales and the Rising of 1839, Gomer Press,
  ISBN 0 86383 605 4
• Williams, Chris (1992). "History, Heritage and Commemoration: Newport 1839–1989". Llafur. 6 (1).
• Williams, Chris, 'Popular Movements 1780–1850' in Chris Williams and Sian Rhiannon Williams, eds. Gwent County History Vol 4 Industrial Monmouthshire 1780–1914, University of Wales Press, 2011
• Williams, David (1939). John Frost, a Study in Chartism, University of Wales Press Board.
• Gwent Local History: Chartist Anniversary Edition (2014) number 116

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Newport Rising.

• Images and records from the UK Parliament Collections
• Chartism & The Chartists at thepeoplescharter.co.uk
• John Lovell and the People's Charter at the National Archives]
• The Chartists at bioeddie.co.uk