The Full Story
In Newport, the old Westgate carried the marks for years.
When the building's stone pillars were taken down in 1884, four bullets were found inside them. They had lain there since one wet morning in 1839.
Across the Welsh valleys, ironworkers and coal miners had had enough.
They forged the iron. They dug the coal. They could not vote.
Their cause was the People's Charter. Six demands. The first was the vote for every working man.
They had asked in the lawful way. A petition of more than 1.2 million names. On 12 July 1839, Parliament threw it out.
So on the night of 3 November, thousands came down from the hills. Through rain and dark, toward Newport and the Westgate Hotel.
Inside the hotel, soldiers of the 45th Regiment of Foot were waiting, armed. Chartists arrested that weekend were held there too.
The marchers reached the Westgate on the morning of 4 November 1839. The crowd pressed at the doors. The shooting began.
It lasted barely half an hour. Around 22 of the marchers were killed. Many were buried in unmarked graves, so the true number will never be known.
Three leaders were taken. John Frost, a draper and former mayor of Newport. Zephaniah Williams. William Jones.
In January 1840 they were convicted of high treason and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. It was the last time that sentence was ever passed in Britain.
A public outcry forced the government to step back. The sentence was changed to transportation for life, to the other side of the world.
The rising had failed. The men were gone. The vote did not come.
John Frost lived to be pardoned. In 1856 he came home to Newport to a hero's welcome.
And of the Charter's six demands, five are now simply the law of the land. Only one, yearly parliaments, was never adopted. The men who marched on Newport were thrown out, locked up and shipped away. In the end, they were proved right.
Why This Matters
The vote that almost every British adult now holds was not handed down from above. It was demanded from below, by people who were denied it, and some of them paid with their lives. The men who marched on Newport in 1839 made the iron and dug the coal that powered the country, yet had no say in how it was run. Their rising failed on the day and its leaders were sentenced to die, then shipped to the far side of the world. But within a few generations five of the six things they asked for had become ordinary British law. It is a hard and honest story: defeat, punishment, and then slow vindication. It belongs to no political party. It belongs to the basic idea that ordinary people should have a voice, and to the long, costly struggle by which they won one.
Key Facts
- ✓On the morning of 4 November 1839, thousands of Chartist ironworkers and miners marched on the Westgate Hotel in Newport, where soldiers of the 45th Regiment of Foot were posted and arrested Chartists were held (Wikipedia; People's Collection Wales)
- ✓The cause was the People's Charter and its six demands, beginning with the vote for working men; a national petition of more than 1.2 million signatures had been rejected by Parliament on 12 July 1839 (Wikipedia)
- ✓When the soldiers opened fire the fighting lasted under half an hour; around 22 marchers were killed, with many buried in unmarked graves (Wikipedia; People's Collection Wales)
- ✓Leaders John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones were convicted of high treason in January 1840 and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, the last such sentence passed in Britain; it was commuted to transportation for life (Wikipedia)
- ✓John Frost, a draper and former mayor of Newport, was pardoned in 1856 and returned home to a hero's welcome (Wikipedia; Newport Rising)
- ⚠The exact death toll is uncertain. Contemporary reports range from about 10 to 24 killed, with around 22 the most commonly cited figure, because some bodies were removed and buried secretly. The Newport Rising is generally described as the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain.