MORNING SERIAL
THIS meant that while the chapels may have challenged external authorities, they respected internal community authority. Chapels were thus at the heart of communities, and if nations are built from the bottom up, then the claim that Nonconformism was the basis of Wales was not unreasonable.
From Nonconformism also came a Liberal ascendancy over Welsh politics. Chapels were not above openly persuading people to vote Liberal and encouraging anti-Conservatism through their attacks on Anglicanism. The personal, moral and spiritual appeal of ministers and preachers gave their rhetoric considerable weight in the communities they served. The party promoted itself as the defender of religious freedoms and this won it considerable support in Wales. After the vote was given to some working men in 1867, doubling the Welsh electorate, the 1868 election saw a breakthrough for the party in Wales when it won 23 seats, compared with the Conservatives’ 10. The election was followed by some 70 evictions of tenants from Tory-owned estates and this cemented the idea that somehow the Conservatives were alien and even anti-Welsh. In contrast, the Liberals began to portray themselves as a Welsh party, representing the religion and interests of the Welsh people. Yet it took British democratic developments before they could take advantage of this and it was the introduction of the secret ballot in 1872 and the granting of the vote to all male heads of household in 1884 that really paved the way for the Liberals’ domination of Welsh politics. Although more than 40% of adult males were still not eligible to vote, the electorate was now full of working men who wanted representatives who better spoke to their interests than the gentlemen MPs of old. Industrialisation and the creation of new urban communities had ripped apart some of the old deference in society and the Liberals were the beneficiaries. In 1885, the party won 30 out of the 34 Welsh seats. Wales was now not just a Nonconformist nation, it was a Liberal one too. Again, this mattered because England was not.
> Wales: England’s Colony? by Martin Johnes is published by Parthian in the Modern Wales series www.parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES TOMORROW