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Compared to other places in Britain, most of Wales had been relatively peaceful in the haste to industrialize. Then came the unrest brought about by the infamous Corn Laws, passed in Parliament in 1815 that kept the price of bread artificially high to benefit the landed interests and wealthy farmers. In an attempt to better conditions, workers tentatively began to form unions, but their members were treated harshly. At the Abbey Works in Neath, for example, in the 1820's, when fifty men tried to form a union, they were immediately fired. The rest of the workers, fearful for their jobs abandoned the idea. "The Cambrian," Wales' leading English-language newspaper, published in Swansea, and ever on the side of the authorities, portrayed the union leaders as "gin-swilling degenerates."
The very idea of workers' union was also roundly condemned by the Calvinistic Methodists, who called on all church members to boycott such "devilish" activity. The times were not yet ripe for the general acceptance of unionism, though they were becoming increasingly attractive to the workers. In 1831 a miner at Merthyr Tydfil told his magistrate: "My Lord, the union is so important to me that I would live on sixpence a week rather than give it up."
With the failure of the unions to win concessions, however, there was a return to violence as a way of improving working conditions and of keeping workers in line with union rules. In Monmouthshire, a group called the Scotch Cattle fought back against the absolute control and power over their lives by the iron masters and coal mine owners. They began a reign of terror in the valleys, destroying property of employers and threatening many workers who refused to go along with their demands. After one of their leaders, Edward Morgan, was hanged in 1834 by the authorities, their activities faded considerably, but by that year the Merthyr Rising, with its fearful consequences for its leaders had already taken place.
Early in 1831, what began as a popular protest against unjust and often deplorable working and living conditions, the Merthyr rising quickly grew into a full-scale, armed rebellion. John Davies has described it as "the most ferocious and bloody event in the history of industrialized Britain."
The revolt was inevitable: the great depression of 1829 had led to massive unemployment and wage cuts leading to substantial debts among the working population. At Merthyr, where iron master William Crawshay had lowered wages, there was a crisis among the shopkeepers and tradesmen, and the Debtor's Court (the Court of Requests) was responsible for a widespread confiscation of working men's property.
A demonstration led by Thomas Llewelyn, a Cyfartha miner, demanded compensation; an angry mob of workers, traders, and townspeople freed the prisoners in the local gaol and marched on to Aberdare. At the same time, at Hirwaun, a few miles away, when the Court seized a cart belonging to a local man named Lewis Lewis, miners and iron workers joined the political radicals and disgruntled tradesmen and raised the red flag of rebellion -- the first time it was to be so used in Britain. On its staff was impaled a loaf of bread, the symbol of the needs of the marchers
The crowd, growing ever larger, and probably emboldened by drink (for beer was both plentiful and cheap, and far safer to drink than water), marched into the streets of Merthyr, raided shops and houses to seize property and goods earlier confiscated in order to return them to their owners. A troop of Scots Highlanders was sent from Brecon Barracks to restore order, and when the large crowds of rioters appeared outside the Castle Inn, the troopers opened fire.
In the resulting panic and mass confusion, over two dozen workers were killed and hundreds wounded, but the soldiers lost 16 men and were forced into retreat. A detachment of Swansea Yeomanry to restore order the following day, but the workers, described by the Cambrian as "thousands of men and women and a body of Irishmen carrying clubs" had set up camp near Cefn Coed, up in the valley, where they ambushed and disarmed the military reinforcements.
It took a week for the forces of the Crown to finally bring order to the area. Punishment was severe: Lewis Lewis, after first receiving the death sentence, was exiled for life, and poor Richard Lewis, known as Dic Penderyn was executed on a charge of wounding a highlander. On 31 July, 1831, he was hanged in Cardiff Gaol, despite the appeal of many thousands of people for his life. Lewis thus became a martyr of the Welsh working class
In Parliament, Lord Melbourne had recognized the severity of the Merthyr riots. He advocated severe repression of all popular workers' movements as "unlawful assemblages of armed individuals," and declared that South Wales was "the worst and most formidable district in the kingdom." He later wrote to a friend that "the affair we had there in 1831 was the most like a fight of anything that took place."
It wasn't only in the industrial areas that discontent made its presence known. There were other causes of social unrest that manifested themselves in Wales, especially in the Carmarthen area, where the most tangible and visible symbols of oppression were the numerous tollgates on the turnpike roads, with their crushing fees.
It was not until a government commission recommended reduction of tolls, especially on lime and other agricultural products that the riots finally came to an end. The rise of the movement known as Chartism constituted a far more serious threat to public order throughout Britain.
The Chartists were part of a new popular movement named after the radical London reformer Williams Levett, who drafted a bill known as The People's Charter in May 1838. With the early failure of the unions, much of the energy of the disgruntled workers was channelled into the ranks of the Chartists. They believed, mistakenly, that they could somehow bring about a democratic parliament and an enfranchised working class that would be able to solve some of their problems and redress their grievances. Like the unionists, they were far too premature in their hopes in spite of their impressive strength.
In the Welsh industrial valleys, however, the movement received a warm welcome, attracting a large following among the largely immigrant miners and iron workers, many of them Irish, and not as reticent as many of their Welsh fellow-workers to challenge authority. There were many that were emboldened by such appeals. The Cambrian of May 11, 1839 noted that a large number of colliers in the hills of Tredegar had given notice to discontinue work, and the leaders of the Chartists were to give a demonstration requesting many of those who were out of employment to join them. A meeting was to take place at Duke's Town, about a mile beyond Tredegar.
The inhabitants felt considerable apprehension, and Mr. Samuel Homfray, acting magistrate, took efforts to preserve the public peace, including the banning of all sales of alcohol from mid-day until six the following morning. A serious riot was averted, however, when the arrival of the military led to a rapid dispersal of the crowd. Despite its early enthusiasm, the editors of the Cambrian labelled the whole event a complete disaster.
The newspaper badly underestimated the strength of the movement and the anguish of the workers. The Tredegar fiasco had closely followed another attempt to stir the conscience of those in power that had taken place also during April at Llanidloes, a mid-Wales centre of the woollen industry. The newspaper reported that the Chartists, having previously been apprehended for rioting, came armed with guns, pistols, pikes and bludgeons to the Trewythen Arms, where they broke doors and windows to force their way in.
While the coal owners and iron masters lived lives of luxury in their splendid mansions: their workers toiled in squalor in row upon row of squat cottages, without adequate supplies of water or means of sanitation. A government report, which looked at life in the Valleys, condemned the state of education in Wales and towns and put the blame on the employers. Many of the working population agreed with such sentiments and turned their backs on the hated factory owners and mine. They put their trust in their Chartist leaders such as Henry Vincent, John Frost, Hugh Williams, Charles Jones, Zephania Williams and John Rees, all of whom pressed for revolutionary activity following the government's complete refusal to consider the six points of the Charter presented on June 14, 1839. These were simple enough: universal male suffrage, vote by ballot, equal electoral districts, annual parliaments, abolition of the property qualifications for election to Parliament, and payment for members (so that it could be open to all classes).
In May 1839, the Cambrian contained a lengthy report of the arrival of the military. Fearing some kind of massive disturbance to the public order, the Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire had sent a division of "the gallant 29th" from Bristol. According to the authorities, his fears were justified: in November came the Newport Rising.
According to The Cambrian, up to 5,000 armed rioters "from the hills" (Ebbw Vale and surrounding districts) entered Newport in three columns, one being commanded by John Frost. In a heavy rainstorm, they marched to the Westgate Hotel, where a small detachment of military waited inside. Accounts of what happened next vary, but it appears that someone opened fire on the soldiers, who responded with a volley into the crowd. It was a repeat of Merthyr all over again.
In the ensuing panic, mass confusion reigned; a score of workers were killed and many more wounded; the bewildered crowd scattered in all direction, most of them fled back into the hills, the first shattering volley from the troops having brought this particular rebellion to a violent and speedy end.
According to the paper, the failure of the Newport mob had prevented a general uprising expected to take place throughout South Wales that would have been the signal for simultaneous uprisings throughout Britain. The whole affair at Newport had lasted no more than twenty minutes though repercussions lasted for more than a century in the political life of South Wales and Monmouthshire.
Harsh sentences followed the arrest of the Chartist leaders. Frost was found guilty of high treason along with William Jones and Rees (Jack the Fifer). The sentences were imposed despite the stirring speech of the defence council Mr. Rickard, who said that many of the witnesses who had given testimony against Frost, who had been praised for their honesty by the prosecution, had themselves been concerned in the transaction, and were protecting themselves by giving information worth rewarding.
Mr. Rickard's stirring, impassioned appeal went for naught. Frost, along with other leaders of the mob, was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to one of life imprisonment in Australia. Petitions from thousands of people in towns all over Britain had implored the Queen for pardon. In addition, not only was there a huge strike of workers in the Monmouthshire collieries, but no-one would work alongside the witnesses at the trial. As the mine owners were anxious to get their men back to work; their influence probably counted far more than the signatures presented to Victoria.
By 1858, the year of the final National Chartist Convention, the movement was fading rapidly. That year an act was passed declaring that property qualifications were no longer necessary for a seat in Parliament, and thus the first great democratizing point of the Charter had been conceded by the Government. In any case, as the Corn Laws had been repealed in 1846 and bread was a little cheaper, people were less inclined to an armed revolt.
The Great Reform Bill of 1867 finally ended the Chartist Movement, for in that year nearly one million voters were added to the register, almost doubling the electorate. Forty-five new seats were created and the vote given to many working. Frost later returned to Wales after many years of servitude "down under" to a hero's welcome. He died in 1877 at the age of ninety-three: his pioneering work in the effort to secure basic rights for the workers, alongside that of the others, had not been in vain
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