“Chartism in Wales never fully recovered from the Newport Rising”
Chartism was effectively 19th- century Britain’s civil rights movement and the Newport Rising was originally conceived as part of a nationwide series. That ambitious project was abandoned at the end of October, but the rising in the ‘black domain’ of south Wales’s collieries and ironworks had developed an unstoppable momentum. The tragic consequence was the largest number of fatalities of any civil disturbance in modern British history.
“I shall this night be engaged in a struggle for freedom,” wrote 19-year- old George Shell of Pontypool to his parents. “Should it please God to spare my life, I shall see you soon; but if not, grieve not. I shall fall in a noble cause.” Inside the Westgate Hotel, Shell managed to confront the mayor of Newport before being shot three times. The teenager took an agonising three hours to die. Shell’s was one of 10 bodies buried by the authorities in unmarked graves, under cover of darkness later that week.
Chartism in Wales never fully recovered from the rising. But across Britain support for Shell’s “noble cause” was undimmed. More people signed the petition calling for the rising’s leaders to be pardoned, than had signed the earlier petition demanding democratic reforms with the People’s Charter. And in 1842 a staggering 3.3 million people signed a further petition for the charter to become law.