‘RETRIBUTION’ is this year’s Convention theme.

 

​

Peter Strong’s lecture Henry Vincent: The Monmouth Prison Letters, the first of the three lectures, is now available to view Online here

 

Two more lectures follow in Early 2021 – All are concerned with how the authorities dealt with the arrested Chartists of 1839

 

The release of each online lecture is accompanied by a Q & A online session led by the speaker. To take part, readers need to register @ Newport Rising website.

 

We start with Peter Strong on Friday 19.30 4th December.

 

Les James writes:

The arrest of Chartists began in early May 1839, when Henry Vincent and three Newport Chartists were brought before the magistrates at the King’s Head hotel, Newport on May 10th. What happened that day at Newport was in many ways a ‘dress rehearsal’ for November 4th although there was a vital difference between the nature of the two events. On the 10th August, Chartist supporters came unarmed and the military (29th Regiment of Foot) stayed away from the street battle.

 

All four men faced charges for organising illegal meetings and making seditious speeches. Bail was set at excessive cost and they were dispatched to Monmouth gaol under military escort.

 

A large crowd of men, women and children, including several hundred miners from the Blackwood district, thronged High Street, and tried to rescue the prisoners from the prison van.

 

Wielding their wooden staves, special constables recently recruited by Mayor Thomas Phillips and his magistrate’s clerk, Thomas Jones Phillips, charged into the crowd and snatched leading activists belonging to the Newport Working Men’s Association – including Charles Waters and John Lovell – and took them prisoner, inside the hotel.

 

The magistrates remained ‘holed-up’ inside and the crowd refused to disperse. At 7pm, John Frost arrived home from London to his drapery shop in High Street, situated almost opposite the King’s Head. He addressed the crowd from an upstairs window, gained the release of all those arrested that day and calmed the situation. However, it was seven weeks before the prisoners were bailed. And at the August Assizes, Vincent was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment, William Edwards (baker) to nine months and both John Dickenson (butcher) and William Townsend, junior (wine merchant) received six months.

 

When leading his supporters into Newport the following November, the odds were against Frost repeating his crowd control ‘trick’. The political climate had changed. A taste for revenge and an expectation of confrontation dominated attitudes on both sides. Although instantly denied by the authorities, they were by November far better prepared than they had been in the Springtime. Also, the military (now the 45th) was no longer restricted and held in reserve, it was in the front line. This was not a strategy favoured by General Charles Napier, who commanded the troops stationed in the north of England.

 

Lovell and Waters, now Chairman and Secretary respectively of the Newport WMA, were both at the vanguard of the marchers as they reached the Westgate inn, HQ of Mayor Phillips. Their grudge was not with the military, who were nowhere to be seen. They spotted the special constables standing on the steps to an open front door. “In you go, my boys!” shouted Lovell and men from the valleys rushed forward…

.

*****************

 

It is tempting to think that none of this would have happened if Vincent and the ‘Newport Three’ had not been pursued by the Monmouthshire magistracy. To come to such a conclusion would reduce the 1839 Rising to little more than a mammoth demonstration demanding the release of a folk hero. We need a more searching set of questions.

 

However, we do need to ask why so many Welsh people warmly welcomed the leadership of a 25-year-old English orator, when he came on his Spring speaking tour to Newport and the Monmouthshire coalfield in early 1839? This question opens the way to exploring deeper questions concerning inequalities of wealth and power.

 

There is little doubt that “The British state spared no effort to tame and defeat the Chartist movement , which sprang on to the British political scene in 1838-39”. To illustrate this claim, I can recommend no better case study than the treatment meted out to Henry Vincent, and offer here a calendar for the period January 1st to May 10th 1839 when Vincent and Frost, who although they had never met before, worked in close collaboration for some four months.

 

1 January. Vincent attended husting meeting at Pontnewynydd, north of Pontypool to support Frost’s nomination as delegate for Pontypool, Newport and Caerleon at the National Convention, He stayed in the area for several days meeting local organisers.

 

Frost focussed on taking a leading role in the National Convention, whilst Vincent devoted his time in February to setting up the Western Vindicator weekly newspaper at Bristol.

 

4 February. At the opening of the National Convention in London, Frost delivered 5,500 signatures obtained in Newport and Pontypool for the National Petition. Being a magistrate, gave him status with his fellow delegates and he was selected as one of the rotating chairmen. At a dinner organised by the West London Democratic Association at Marylebone, Frost toasted ‘The People… the only source of political power’. The Home Office informed him that he could not remain a magistrate, if he continued as a delegate.

16 February. Frost was applauded by the Convention, when he said, “If Lord John Russell takes my name off, the people will put it on”. The Convention issued a response, demanding Frost’s reinstatement as magistrate.

 

4 March. Vincent set off on a 16 Day Speaking Marathon - meeting the people of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and the town of Monmouth reaching Newport by the 19th.

 

16 March. Frost chaired a meeting at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand. Sensationally – all the speakers were reported to have called upon the people to physically force Parliament to grant all men the vote.

 

18 March. The London Working Men’s Association held a dinner at the White Conduit House in honour of John Frost for his ‘splendid rebuke’ to Lord John Russell. Frost attacked the Russell family - they had misused the profits from their Woburn Abbey and Tavistock estates. These lands had been given to the Church in early times to provide for the people. The poor had the right to be clothed from the produce.

19 March. Frost received a letter from the Home Office asking him to explain his remark that the people would place him back as a magistrate. Frost replied immediately, asking what it was that he had to explain. He claimed that his real offence was that he was opposing a system of government which has ‘ bribery, drunkenness and perjury for its foundation’. The Chartists dubbed Russell, ‘Finality Jack’ because he argued that the 1832 Reform Act had defined appropriate property qualifications for the male franchise.

 

20 March. At Newport, Vincent warned of “the growing snowball of Chartism... oppressors to beware lest it should roll down and crush them”

22 March. A Chartist meeting called at Devizes had been broken up by the authorities.

Vincent called for a ‘monster’ public rally on April 1st.

 

25 March. Vincent returned to Newport on the packet steamer from Bristol. He was well received and entertained to tea by the Newport women. His excited audience went in procession through the town – the women, four abreast, in front with Vincent and the men following behind.

As they passed John Frost’s house in High Street, they gave three cheers for Mrs Frost, the proud mother. Daringly, Vincent spoke for an hour from a wagon. The Mayor’s agents simply watched, ignoring this challenge to the Sedition laws.

26-27 March. William Edwards took Vincent for his first visit to Pontllanfraith, Blackwood and Gelligroes in the Sirhowy valley. That evening, back in Newport and clearly emboldened by the experience of coal field activism, Vincent made his most militant speech to date. Standing on a wagon positioned beneath a gas lamp, he called for support on May 6th when the National Petition was due to be delivered to Parliament. If their demands were not conceded, every hill and valley must be prepared to send forth its army, at the call of the Convention. “We will, we will’ answered the crowd. Edwards held up his powerful hand, crying out - ”Here’s the stuff”.

28 March. Vincent left for Stroud via the Aust ferry to meet Frost who had been in Gloucestershire campaigning against ‘Finality Jack’ – Lord John Russell.

 

29 March. Stroud – supporters arrived from other Gloucestershire towns and a crowd of thousands acclaimed Frost as their representative in the National Convention. He was committing himself to stand in the next election against Russell.

 

30 March. Frost hurried home for family duties – he had missed his daughter’s marriage.

 

1 April. That morning Vincent was at Devizes, mustering supporters in the Chartist strongholds of Bradford-upon-Avon, Trowbridge, Chippenham and Bronham. They marched in the rain to Devizes. The Magistrates had declared the meeting illegal. Vincent reported:

 

A wagon was placed in front of the Market Cross, and our friends gradually took up their position around it …. Mr Roberts and myself jumped upon the hustings. A horn blew in the rear of the hustings, immediately, when a stone struck me on the back part of the head and knocked me out of the waggon.” In the fight that followed…”I saw many well-dressed persons directing the attack, armed with pistols. After receiving several blows, I again got up to the waggon, and we remounted it, but found it impossible to speak. …..I was assailed by about twenty bludgeon men…. “Death to Vincent, Roberts, and Carrier”, was yelled in chorus. … The tall fellow (WHO IS MARKED AND KNOWN) raised his heavy club … I gave way, and received a severe blow on the chest” They retreated to the Curriers’ Arms, where Roberts and Vincent attempted to address the people for a short time, but gave up when they could see “the bludgeon men (who had been replenished with the contents of a few barrels of beer) again mustering for the attack”. The High Sheriff provided a military escort out of the town.

 

 

 

5 April. Frost left Newport urgently for London to attend the National Convention Kings Head Meeting Pontypool due to injuries sustained at Devizes, Vincent did not attend. William Edwards (Newport Baker) and local chairman William Jones, gave rousing ‘physical force’ speeches

 

6 April. Western Vindicator advises Chartists to protect themselves from attack by carrying wooden staves. Writing in his “Rambles” about his visit ten days previously to the Sirhowy valley, Vincent remarks - “Fine fertile hills rising in all directions, I could not help thinking of the defensible nature of the country in the case of foreign invasion! A few thousands of armed men on the hills could successfully defend them.”

 

9 April. Newtown Charles Jones speaking at meeting : “If Lord John Russell and those with whom he acts will by their perversity drive us to the edge of the precipice and if we must take the leap, then, by Heaven, we will take it.”

 

8-12 April. Henry Hetherington, a LWMA missionary sent to mid-Wales, finds a strong ‘physical force’ element within the ranks of the textile workers at Newtown and Llanidloes.

 

12 April. The Yeomanry from twenty parishes mustered by William Phillips of Whitson Court – one of the magistrates, at the behest of Thomas Phillips, Newport’s mayor. They gathered at the Royal Oak, Christchurch offering to defend the constitution.

 

13 April. Vincent wrote in Western Vindicator:

 

“April 1st is a day that it must not be forgotten…. THAT THE ARISTOCRACY WILL COMMIT MURDER RATHER THAN GIVE THE PEOPLE FOOD; AND THE RIOT TELLS US, IN LANGUAGE WE CANNOT MISTAKE, TO PROVIDE ARMS FOR OUR SELF-DEFENCE. CHARTISTS! TAKE, FOR ONCE, A LESSON FROM YOUR FOES!’

 

18 April. Thursday: Now recovered, Vincent arrived at Newport by the packet from Bristol and addressed the crowd gathered to meet him.

19 April Friday: In his speech at Pentonville (Queen’s Hill), Vincent used a biblical text: ‘To your tents, O Israel’. Many of his audience, from Sunday School and Chapel attendance, knew their bible. Mayor Phillips grasped the call to arms! And sought legal advice from the Home Office immediately.

 

20 April Saturday Vincent was in Pontypool, where he met with William Jones. ‘the watchmaker’.

21 April Sunday: Vincent with supporters, attended Divine Service at St. Paul’s Church, Newport when Rev. James Francis delivered sermon denouncing Chartism.

 

22 April Monday: Vincent met Dr. William Price at Blackwood and travelled to Nantyglo, where he encountered Crawshay Bailey, ironmaster. He stayed at Blaina with Zephaniah and Joan Williams at the Royal Oak Inn, home to a thriving Chartist lodge and a female society.

24 April Wednesday: Vincent returned to Pontypool. Meanwhile, Thomas Philips gathered the County magistrates at the Kings Head, Newport to announce that night time meetings were illegal, meetings in Newport’s public houses banned and there would be recruitment of new special constables.

 

25 April Thursday: Large scale street protests occurred in Newport. Mayor estimated a crowd of 1000, whereas Vincent claimed he had spoken to 4000. People, challenging the Mayor’s judicial orders.

26 April Friday: Vincent repeated his attack on the Mayor, from the upstairs window of Frost’s property in High Street and again on the quayside, before departing to Bristol for a night-time meeting on Brandon Hill.

Vincent wrote in the Western Vindicator “On the packet starting, I was cheered all down the river by the shipwrights who assembled on the hulls of the various ships they were building; and the seamen hoisted their flags mast high as I passed them. I was really overcome by this display of kind respect.”

During the last days of April , Vincent was a marked man, watched by the agents of Thomas Jones Phillips, the magistrate’s clerk and the Mayor’s ‘enforcer’. Magistrates searched for arms and collated reports of seditious speeches. The anti-chartists were rallying.

29 April Monday: An anti-Chartist Demonstration was organised by Crawshay Bailey at Nantyglo in response to claims in the Monmouthshire Merlin (20 April) that pikes were being manufactured and hawkers were selling arms. The Chartists denied these rumours. Crawshay Bailey released his workers from their duties provided they attended this outdoor meeting. According to the anti-Chartist Monmouthshire Merlin (4 May), the crowd numbered 5000 with Bailey taking charge as chairman. He challenged Vincent’s ability to lay out the capital as he had done to develop the valley and provide a livelihood for its inhabitants. His property was, he said, the result of his own industry and he would sacrifice his life rather than lose it.

 

30 April Tuesday: NEWS came from MID-WALES that the of Llanidloes was in the hands of the Chartists! The Home Office received from the Welshpool magistrates complaints that the Chartists were secretly drilling and in recent weeks young Chartists from Llanidloes had visited farmers in the district demanding to ‘borrow’ their guns – they said they needed them for a shooting match. Three London policemen were dispatched to assist special constables and they had arrived Monday, staying the night at the Trewythen Arms.

 

Today, Tuesday morning, Lewis Humphreys blew his ‘Horn of Liberty’ and the people gathered at the town bridge over the Severn. Special constables arrived and two members of the crowd were taken into custody at the Trewythen Arms. The crowd rushed the hotel and released their two comrades. They wrecked the building and poured the beer and wine down the gutters. The police ran and hid in fear for their lives, leaving the Chartists in charge of the town, taking their orders from the Political Union based in Llandinam There was no more violence and the expected attack on the Workhouse did not occur.

 

Petition Day May 6th – The Petition Committee of the National Convention met, but Thomas Attwood MP, who had promised to submit the petition to Parliament, declined. Vincent, a committee member, was there and reported to his readers “He told us to bring the Petition to the house of Mr. Fielding, the next day at two o’clock, where he (Mr. Attwood) would receive it.” Petition was delivered to Mr. Fieldings in Fleet Street, at two o’clock the following day. The huge roll of petitions had been placed upon a wagon, with a Union Jack at each corner. Representatives of the 52 Convention delegates lined up behind, two abreast, headed by the chairman of the day, Bailie Craig, and William Lovett, the secretary. They proceeded through the Strand to Haymarket reaching Fielding’s house. Thomas Attwood of the Birmingham Political Union received the petition, speaking with Feargus O’Connor from an upstairs window. [It was not delivered to Parliament until 12th July]

 

Vincent was arrested in London May 7th That same evening, a large meeting chaired by Frost and addressed by Vincent was held at the ‘ Black Horse’ fields. After supper, Frost accompanied Vincent towards his lodgings. Vincent told his readers how he shook hands with Mr. Frost in Lamb’s Conduit Street, and bade him good night. On reaching home, he observed a stranger at the door.

He prevented my entrance by shaking hands, saying

 

“Ah, are you Mr. Henry Vincent”.

“I am” was my reply.

“Late of Newport”, said he.

“No”, I answered, “I have been in Newport.”

“Within ten days?” was his question.

“Yes” was my answer.

“Then”, said he, “I have a warrant for you”.

 

Vincent refused to move. When the Street Officer named Mr. Keys arrived, Vincent agreed to go to the nearby Boot public house to study the documents.

 

The stranger was William Walter Homan, an officer of the 28th Regiment on half pay, employed by Samuel Homfray as police superintendent at Tredegar. He was carrying a warrant issued by the Newport magistrates. Vincent agreed to go to Bow Street – and “shook hands with my friends, kissed my little sister, poor girl, she seemed sadly terrified and sent the news to Frost”.

 

After two days and nights in a cell, spent singing radical songs, due to a failed attempt to catch the Mail coach, Vincent finally left London at 7pm on May 9th and fifty miles out of the city, his handcuffs were removed.

 

The New Year edition no. 21 http://thechartists.org/magazine.html will contain details of the other two lectures in this Convention series:

 

Ray Stroud, In Search of Jenkin Morgan

 

Dr Joan Allen Legality and Injustice in the Age of the Chartists, with special reference to Regina vs Frost 1840

To make sure you receive our CHARTISM eMAG ALERTS contact the editor les.james22@gmail.com