No 7 October 2014 Chartism Celebrating the first mass movement for civil rights and social justice Who were the ‘Scotch cattle’? When we sat down together in the City Library with some of What moved the books he had been reading, it was obvious he wanted to get ‘right’ the context - the time and men to march the place that the film is about. Reading ‘The Last Rising’, written by the late Professor David in 1839? Jones, Michael Sheen was struck by the story of William Ferriday. David Jones tells how on Sunday evening 3 November 1839, Ferriday, a collier, kissed his wife, Mary and his children goodbye, unable to tell them where he was going. And fifteen hours later he was dead, one of 22 men killed at the Westgate hotel. WHAT MOVED A MAN TO DO THIS? (Cont. page 2) MAGAZINE CONTENTS: 2 Come to Dowlais LIbrary 3 Newport Chartist Michael Sheen at Pontypridd before filming started, at the CHARTISM Mag seminar Convention organised by Rhondda Historical Society. 4 Calendar of Events Michael Sheen is back in Wales and wants to know why so many people joined a 5 Newport Chartist campaign that put their lives in danger 175 Commission – Appointing a years ago. Project Manager Spotting Michael Sheen became a late September game in Gwent and Newport. 5 Prof. Chris Williams: The staff at the Secret Garden Café claimed Newport Chartist Rising the first ‘selfie’, but others spotted him earlier outside the Westgate. Judith Haines sat by 7 The Forgotten him on the bus, when going home from work at the Royal Gwent. He was photographed 8 From Trails To Trials – visiting Blackwood Library. He was also seen at Tredegar – and many other places in North 8 Gwent History society Gwent. “Special Edition” CHARTISM Mag caught up with Michael and his film crew at Newport Museum in the 9 The Full Story Of Ferriday Chartist exhibition he opened in 2010. He raised question after question – what kind of 11 Networking places were the coalfield iron towns and pit villages? How did people fare for food and 12 Stop Press shelter? What was wrong with the Truck shops? 1 COME TO DOWLAIS LIBRARY BRIAN DAVIES 7th Annual MERTHYR TYDFIL CHARTIST LECTURE Dr Williams Price and Pontypridd Chartism 7.15 pm Wednesday 15th October 2014 Sadly, too often Dr William Price is presented as an exotic and eccentric, even mad, figure and no attention is given to the Chartist years of his life. At best, it’s only his innovative act of cremation that Is (Cont. from page 1) “Chartists in the Blackwood given serious attention. Expect different from Brian, area were gathering up their weapons and who since his student days has enthusiastically making their farewells. One of these was William championed Price and explained his intelligence, Ferriday, who had some fifteen hours to live. complexity, social humaneness, polymath interests The illiterate son of a fairly violent and militant and above all, his revolutionary politics family, William lived opposite the Lamb and Flag beerhouse in Blackwood and worked just over Brian has just retired from long service as curator at a mile away at Fleur-de-Lis. On this day he was the Pontypridd Museum and that ‘rite of passage’ unusually quiet and when, about 6.30 p.m., two was marked by him with the delivery of a succinct men called for him, he told his wife that he did paper at the Pontypridd seminar held on 20th not know where he was going or when he would September. Brian placed the ‘druidic personna’ of be home. ‘I cried aloud’, recalled Mary Ferriday, Dr William Price in a meaningful historical setting. ‘and the children as well. Some of them went He demonstrated how Price derived his ideas from after him. He kissed them again in the road and Iolo Morganwg and the books that had influenced then said Goodbye . .”* Iolo, who as well as inventing the Gorsedd, created a Mary did not know what had happened Welsh version of the ‘Norman Yoke’ theory of history to William. A week later, she arrived at the propounded by English radicals – a belief that the Westgate hotel, distraught and carrying her Norman conquest had done away with a highly new born baby. The magistrates were in session democratic Saxon ‘constitution’. As the Saxon past interrogating suspects and witnesses. Somebody has no existence in Welsh history, so Iolo and Price had given his coat to her and she learned went back further into the mists of prehistoric time to he had been buried the previous Thursday, find their democratic Utopia. Brian writes they “knew anonymously along with nine others at St. that if people have been taught for generations that Woolos church yard. they are a subordinate people, of no account in the great pageant of history, then in order that they can *The Last Rising: The Newport Chartist Insurrection of 1839, David J. V. Jones, 1985, reprinted 2013, published by the University of muster the courage to attempt to shape their own Wales Press. Professor Owen Ashton reviewed this book in last future they must first be given a version of history month’s magazine. The Quotation is from page 123. which inspires some self-confidence.” We look forward to an extended version of this thesis at Dowlais. Best wishes in your retirement Brian. Hopefully this means you will now have the time to address all those knotty issues about the Welsh dimension of Chartism that you have been encouraging us to think about? We certainly hope so! Read the full article by Brian Davies in the latest edition of Merthyr Historian vol.26, pp.73-84 (available price £12 plus £2 P&P from Keith L. Lewis- Jones, 20, Grover’s Field, Abercynon, CF45 4PP. 2 8TH NEWPORT CHARTIST CONVENTION 1 Nov 2014 At the CITY CAMPUS of the University of Malcolm Chase (Leeds University) always South Wales 10.00–16.30 provides invaluable insights about ‘physical force’ Chartism and he will be looking at the surprising BOOK your FREE PLACE Today: influence of the 1837-38 Canadian rebellion on the [email protected] strategies adopted in 1838-40 • Three eminent Professors - Chartist Owen Ashton (Staffordshire University) will consider what happened after the Rising and experts discuss the 1839 RISING will look at the Petitioning for the release of the • Women and the Vote (Lectures, ‘Three Welsh Martyrs’, the Victim Funds, the Chartist Addresses and the celebrations, when John Frost Film) from the Chartists to the returned in 1856 from Tasmania, pardoned. Suffragettes Chris Williams (Cardiff University) who has • Chartist or Women Suffragist recently written the foreword to a reprint of the late David J.V.Jones’ seminal work ‘The Last Rising’ will Ancestors – have you got one in follow David’s dictum ‘there is more to be discovered’ your family? and discuss new research that has been or might be conducted. The morning session focusses on the ‘Rising’ with The session after lunch is devoted to Female an opportunity to participate in a wide ranging Suffrage and the enduring struggle of women to gain discussion of its context, causes and consequences. the right to vote. Val Williams, actress, will compere All three speakers have delivered keynote lectures this session. at previous Conventions. Their contributions will look Dr Joan Allen (Newcastle University) will beyond what happened at the Westgate hotel on 4 compare the roles played in south Wales and the November 1839 and explore the broader context Northeast by women in the Chartist movement. – in terms of geography, historical time and cultural Dr Ryland Wallace, (author of Organise! ideas. Organise! Organise!), will share his recent researches concerning the suffragettes at Newport and elsewhere in South Wales. The Bird in the Cage – A Winding Snake Production Animation film about Lady Rhondda will be shown. The session after tea is a return to where the Convention started in 2007: Chartist Ancestors. There will be several descendants of Chartists attending this Convention - Dai Amos, Sarah Richards, Sylvia Taylor, Jeremy Knight – if you have a Chartist ancestor in your family or a Suffragette or a Suffragist, contact the editor: [email protected] Free Entry - BOOKING ESSENTIAL LUNCH (optional) £10: Orders must be placed before 20 October [email protected] 3 CALENDAR•175 Events to celebrate the 175th Anniversary of the ‘Chartist Rising’ Tuesday 28 October 7.00 pm Newport Museum & •Find out from Rachael Lovering (Gwent Archives) Art Gallery how you can take part in the ‘Trials to Trails’ – Lecture: Professor Chris Williams (Cardiff University) Cynefin Project Sir Thomas Phillips - The Great Hero of the • Local history and chartist quiz for everyone at Newport Rising 10.30 am Free Public Lecture sponsored by Friends Friday October 31 evening of the Museum: THEE FACTION, ATTILA the STOCKBROKER and Les James Chartist Activism in South Wales – GIVE ME MEMPHIS at LE PUB 1, Caxton Place Commemoration, Celebration, Denial Tickets: £6.00 advance, £8.00 on door Available Tours of the Chartist Trials document collection http://www.lepub.co.uk/ and from Diverse Records (Library) at 10-10:30, 11-11:30, 14-14:30 and 15-15:30 Only limited number on each tour. Saturday 1 November 10.0 -16.00 Please BOOK 01633 656656 8th Annual Newport Chartist Convention Venue: USW. Newport City Campus EXHIBITIONS FOR FULL DETAILS, SEE PAGE 3 FREE at Newport Museum & Art Gallery (Tuesday – Monday 3 November 7.30pm “Surrender the Saturday) Permanent Chartist displays opened 2010 Prisoners” Night Out at the ‘Stute’ with Martyn by Michael Sheen (Floor 1) Joseph (singer-songwriter) and Patrick Jones (poet and playwright) FREE at Newport Central Library St.