THE MEN WHO DIED MARCHING FOR VOTE
JAMES MCCARTHY looks back on the Newport Rising, which saw at least 22 Chartists killed by troops
GUNSHOTS rang out and the streets ran red with blood as government troops mowed down at least 22 men. This was the scene of the biggest ever state-sponsored killing on the British mainland, when soldiers burst from Newport’s Westgate Hotel and butchered men marching for their right to vote.
It was November 4, 1839. Thousands had marched on the town in what has become known as the Newport Rising. Estimates of the numbers vary. Some say there were as many as 20,000 men.
Led by former Newport mayor John Frost, Nantyglo’s Zephania Williams and Pontypool’s William Jones, they were intent on freeing comrades reported to have been taken captive in the Westgate.
“The 22 dead are just the ones we know of,” said the Chartist Society’s Pat Drewett.
“I’m sure others went and died at home and were secretly buried.
“The authorities were afraid of revolution so the soldiers took the dead bodies left at Westgate Square and buried them in the middle of the night at St Woolos churchyard.
“They were afraid that going to be taken further.”
The Monmouthshire Merlin reported the “firing of the troops was steady and murderous, both on the rioters in front of the hotel and on those who rushed into the premises.
“Several unhappy wretches fell in view of the house, five or six mortally wounded, and were killed and several wounded inside,” it said.
“During the melee the mayor was again wounded and had two providential escapes of life. A Chartist was this was about piercing his body with a pike when he was shot dead by a soldier.”
The mayor was nearly shot by the military, but someone pushed the gun aside.
“The heat of the conflict lasted about quarter of an hour when the defeated Chartists took to their heels in all directions – throwing away their arms and abandoning their dead and dying,” the Merlin said.
Chartists at the rear of the Stow Hill column fled across fields “scattering their weapons”, it said.
The Ipswich Journal claimed the intention was “to seize the whole of South Wales”.
“They reached the Westgate Arms, and were no sooner in front of it, than they gave three cheers, and immediately proceeded to demolish the house and fire upon the soldiers who were within,” said a writer.
“Nothing, says an eye witness, can heighten the horror of the scene at this moment. Ladies with their children were in many of the rooms into which the slugs fired by the Chartists were flying, and threatening instant death to every person present.”
But the Chartists came off worse than anyone.
Some claimed as many as 60 were massacred. One reporter saw 17 bodies. Industrialist Samuel Homfray reckoned at least 30 Chartists had been killed. Policeman Moses Scard said he saw 16 corpses in the town.
Two or three were found scattered around Newport. One man died in the town’s Pillgwenlly.
Tredegar’s David Morgan was found in Friars Field, where Friars Walk shopping centre is now. He was identified by his grieving widow.
At the Westgate the authorities took nine bodies, five from inside the hotel and four outside.
Daniel Evans ran a tailor’s shop opposite. He said a man was shot at the west corner of the hotel, another collapsed on the front steps and a third was shot in a doorway.
Another fell backwards from a window, then tried to crawl away on his hands and knees.
A bill poster reported “a full and particular account of a dreadful riot”.
By the following Tuesday things had calmed.
It said: “The town seems still and peaceable, excepting a great talk about the killed, wounded and the unfortunate desperate transaction.”
The civil unrest was triggered by the arrest at Monmouth in March 1839 of Henry Vincent for inciting people to riot.
The political reformer knew John Frost and they wanted employees protected from inhumane treatment.
But the county’s Lord Lieutenant and the Secretary of State knew of the sour mood. “The troops were sent down to the Westgate Hotel and were waiting behind closed shutters for the Chartists to arrive,” Mr Drewett said.
“That is where the confrontation took place.
“Who fired the first shot I do not think anyone knows.”
The attack on the Westgate began at 9.10am. There was an assault party of 200 or 300 men. They were positioned in front of the building as most of their colleagues came down Stow Hill.
According to Ivor Wilks’ South Wales and the Rising of 1839, the Chartists fired on the hotel.
For a while they had the upper hand.
Lieutenant Basil Gray was one of the soldiers inside.
“They always faltered when they encountered their own dead, and then received our fire,” he said.
The assault was short-lived and the violence appalling.
“The shutters of the Westgate were thrown open and the soldiers fired into the crowd for about 20 minutes,” Mr Drewett said.
It is thought at least 120 armed men were in the Westgate.
Panic took hold of the throng. “The Chartists wouldn’t have just stood there,” Mr Drewett said.
Surgeons treated the Westgate’s defenders, but left the rebels alone.
There is no full list of the dead and only 22 have been named.
They are John Codd; David Davies, of Waunhelygen, Brynmawr; his son David; Evan Davies, a collier; John Davis, a carpenter and Chartist secretary from Pontnewynydd; William Evans, a Tredegar miner; Blackwood collier William Farraday; John Jonathan, believed to be from Blaina; and William Griffiths, thought to be from Merthyr Tydfil and whose Chartist