MICHAEL SHEEN STARS in CHARTIST FILM for BBC Michael Sheen Will Be Asking
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No 6 September 2014 Chartism Celebrating the first mass movement for civil rights and social justice MICHAEL SHEEN STARS IN CHARTIST FILM FOR BBC Michael Sheen will be asking - How can this best be done? Do you think voting is any use? What do you think about marching and protesting? In 1839, the people marched to Newport. Where should the people march today? He will make his way to Blackwood and on to Newport. MAGAZINE CONTENTS 2 EDITORIAL - ‘Chartist Spring’ ends 3 Counter ATTACK Begins - Anti Chartist Rally organised. Hollywood based star Michael 4 VINCENT- Arrested in London Sheen is coming home this September to 5 Riot crushed at King’s Head make a film on Chartism. 5 Who set fire to Prothero’s Rick? Newport born Sheen is back in Gwent this month walking the route the Chartists took in 6 ‘PHYSICAL FORCE’ – Explained 1839, when they marched on Newport. He will be filming on location at Tredegar, Ebbw 7 Newport’s Chartist Banner revealed Vale, Blaina - places where the Chartists started walking 175 years ago. 8 Merthyr’s Forgotten Leader – Morgan Williams Back then, people in their thousands Marched to get the right to vote and decide 9 BOOK REVIEW: “The Last Rising: who went to Parliament. This is the way they The Newport Insurrection of believed they could get a better life. 1839”- Professor David J. V. Jones’ masterpiece work Michael Sheen wants to meet people, who th will talk with him about what they are doing 11 EVENTS - 175 Anniversary in their community. He wants to find out 13 NETWORKING what they want to put right today. 1 View from the Editor’s Chair ‘Chartist Spring’ comes to its end In our last edition (no 5), we gave full coverage to Henry Vincent’s Spring tour of 1839 – he stormed through the counties on the Welsh borders and stirred the south Wales coalfield. His reception at Newport was extraordinary. Banned from holding meetings in public houses, crowds defied the Mayor or ‘Mr. Gag’ as they preferred to call him. They thronged the streets, gathering to hear Vincent. The magistrates meeting at the Kings Head on April 24th declared these mass protests illegal. Mayor Phillips had been given the green light by the Home Office. Through the Lord Lieutenant of the county, Capel The ‘Chartist Spring’ in south Wales Hanbury Leigh, Phillips lobbied the Home Office ended on May 10th at the King’s Head for troops and increased powers. hotel, Newport when Henry Vincent and three th Newport Chartists were brought before the Returning on April 25 to Bristol on the steam magistrates – and they were removed from the packet, Vincent wrote – “I was cheered all the political arena. way down the river by the shipwrights … the seamen hoisted their flags mast high as I However it was far too early to write off Frost. passed them.” May 10th was his day too. Out of town, on Convention business in London, he got back The Radicals of Newport were somewhat giddy early evening in time to intervene and save with this experience, but all proved delusory. Newport from destructive riot. His home and Three years earlier, Newport’s radicals had draper’s business was situated almost opposite controlled the Borough when Frost was mayor, the King’s Head. From an upstairs window he but his enemies, Thomas Prothero and Thomas calmed the crowd and showed the magistrates Phillips, were engaged in a fight-back. Since how authority can rest on popular goodwill and January 1839, Mayor Phillips was methodically trust. His intervention saved those arrested in and quietly building an anti-Chartist alliance. the riots from trial - they were released, He recruited a significant number of the town’s middling people and drew them into alliance with ‘Keep the Peace’ was still the Chartist the landed and industrial county set. Phillips was watchword, but the action of the magistrates far from ‘the fool or ass’ Vincent assumed. confirmed their fears, they were living under a ‘Tyranny’. New watch words gained credence Fear of revolution in the North of England caused – ‘Peacefully if we may, Forcibly if we must’. Lord John Russell to embark on the ‘decapitation’ During the summer two of the militants arrested of the Chartist leadership. May 2nd saw a th at the King’s Head - Charles Waters and John company of the 29 Regiment arrive at Newport Lovell became Secretary and Chairman of the and others were billeted at Abergavenny and th Newport Working Men’s Association. In the Monmouth. May 6 passed without delivery of coalfield, under cover of the lodges, the ‘Scotch the National Petition to Parliament. The following cattle’ reincarnated as an underground military day arrests started. organisation. Newport and the Gwent valleys faced an ‘Angry Summer’ 2 ONE HUNDRED AND Welsh nonconformity on side. There were speeches in Welsh, but unfortunately these SEVENTY YEARS AGO were not reported by the monoglot Merlin/ Beacon press. It is interesting however that Crawshay Bailey did not dare stretch The COUNTER the ‘loyalty’ of his large audience by ever ATTACK BEGINS organising a counter petition. The support that the workers of the Ebbw Fach valley th Anti-Chartist Rally 29 April 1839 gave to the November Rising apparently shocked Crawshay and the Browns and Crawshay Bailey, owner of the Nantyglo explains their determination to capture and works, in alliance with the Browns, who ran severely punish Zephaniah Williams after the neighbouring Blaina and Coalbrookvale 4th November. works, organised the biggest anti-Chartist rally held in Wales. The Merlin and the Beacon both reported 5000 attended. Crawshay Bailey claimed “we have lived pleasantly together without the interference of strangers”. This barb was obviously intended for Vincent, but Bailey also had Zephaniah Williams in his sights. Williams and his wife, Joan had very recently moved from Sirhowy to take over the running of the Royal Oak. The rally was held in the grounds of Coalbrookvale House, directly across the valley from the Williams’ beer house, where regularly Chartist meetings spilled out over the hillside at its rear. It was there only six days previously that young Joseph Bailey, accompanied by a gang of ‘heavies’, had attempted to trap Vincent into admitting he was a republican. Vincent proved slippery, avoiding this obvious attempt to make it possible for the magistrates to bring a charge of sedition and he also recognised the danger of being set up for causing riotous behaviour. When the audience threatened Bailey, Vincent stepped in and protected him from harm. Consequently, the anti-Chartist rally went off peacefully. Zephaniah Williams suspected that in calling his rally, Crawshay Bailey was hoping for unrest that might make the place “a second Devizes” (his letter in Silurian 15 June). Many of the speeches referred to Zephaniah Williams’ blasphemous ideas showing the ironmasters were not only playing the ‘race card’ condemning English agitators, they were also working to get 3 hands with Mr. Frost in VINCENT’S STORY – Lamb’s Conduit Street, and bade him good his arrest in London night. On reaching Petition Day May 6th – came and went home, I observed a The Petition Committee of the National stranger at the door. Convention met, but Thomas Attwood MP, He prevented my who had promised to submit the petition to entrance by shaking Parliament, declined. Vincent, a committee hands, saying “Ah, member, was there and reported to his are you Mr. Henry readers “He told us to bring the Petition to Vincent”. “I am” was my the house of Mr. Fielding, the next day at reply. “Late of Newport”, two o’clock, where he (Mr. Attwood) would said he. “No”, I answered, “I have been receive it.” in Newport.” “Within ten days?” was his question. “Yes” was my answer. “Then”, Petition was delivered to Mr. Fieldings said he, “I have a warrant for you”. in Fleet Street, at two o’clock the following day. The huge roll of petitions had Vincent refused to move. When the Street been placed upon a wagon, with Officer named Mr. Keys arrived, Vincent a Union Jack at each corner. agreed to go to the nearby Boot public Representatives of the 52 house to study the papers. This stranger Convention delegates lined was William Walter Homan, an officer up behind, two abreast, of the 28th Regiment on half pay, headed by the chairman employed by Samuel Homfray of the day, Bailie Craig, as police superintendent at and William Lovett, Tredegar. He was carrying a the secretary. They warrant issued by the Newport proceeded through the magistrates. He agreed to go to Strand to Haymarket reaching Bow Street – he “shook hands with Fielding’s house. Thomas my friends, kissed my little sister, poor Attwood of the Birmingham girl, she seemed sadly terrified and sent Political Union received the petition, the news to Frost”. speaking with Feargus O’Connor from an upstairs window. After two days and nights in a cell, spent singing radical songs, due to a failed Vincent arrest in London May 7th That attempt to catch the Mail coach, he finally same evening, a large meeting chaired by left London at 7pm on May 9th and fifty Frost and addressed by Vincent was held at miles out of the city, his handcuffs were the Black Horse Fields. After supper, Frost removed. accompanied Vincent towards his lodgings. Vincent told his readers how he “shook 4 trial at the summer assizes, the crowd Riot at the King’s stormed the building and tried to capture the prison wagon. Using their staves, Head May 10th the special constables cleared the area and made snatch arrests of agitators.