Sources for Chartism: Merlin 5th November 1839

Merlin - 5th November, 1839 - Chartist Insurrection at Newport - Total Defeat of the Insurgents - Upwards of 20 Killed and a Large Number Wounded

We have this day to perform the most melancholy duty that ever devolved upon us as journalists and we write with the most intense feelings of regret.

The mania of Chartism which has been produced and actively cherished in this country amongst the great body of the working classes by selfish designing and profligate demagogues has appallingly raged; and the blood of many infatuated wretches has been spilt in an insurrectionary struggle. We have elsewhere in the present number of the Merlin, as well as upon many former occasions, expressed our opinions on the monstrous delusion of what the plunderers of the people, enemies of social order artfully call the "Peoples Charter"; and we now proceed to the sad details of the fatal consequences which have resulted to some of the ill-fated insurgents who have been lured from honest industry and have harkened to the voice of their betrayers.

On Saturday and Sunday last reports had come that the Chartists of the Hills were preparing for an attack on Newport and that in the event of success they intended to march to Monmouth for the liberation of Vincent and the other Chartist prisoners confined in the jail of that town. From the frequency and vagueness of such reports for some weeks little importance (generally speaking) was attached to these rumours until Sunday when Thomas Philips Junior Esquire, Mayor of Newport obtained information to which some credence was attached that an insurrectionary movement had been determined on in the Chartist Lodges. Some well-informed from the manufacturing districts stated that the "Rise" was to have taken place on the preceding Tuesday but was deferred to Sunday night or early Monday morning; that the disaffected had been possessing themselves of arms and that they had sent scouts to Newport to ascertain the state of preparation in which the town would be placed by the authorities. The Mayor from the first moment of serious alarm adopted every precautionary measure which firmness, correct judgement and indefatigable exertion could accomplish in the time and under the circumstances. He swore in a large number of special constables from amongst all classes - and was in frequent communication with the detachment of the brave 45th Regiment stationed at the Poor House and appointed the Westgate Hotel as the headquarters of the little band elected for the defence of the town. At eight o'clock Lieutenant Grey of the 45th with two sergeants and thirty soldiers arrived at the Westgate Hotel from the barracks at the Poor House beyond Stow Hill. The gallant Lieutenant immediately placed himself and men under the direction of the Mayor and the brave determined fellows were judiciously posted through the premises. Business was entirely suspended, the shops were all shut, and a solemn stillness pervaded the town. The shutters of the Westgate Hotel windows were closed but the entrance was open and the passage occupied by several gentlemen with staves who acted as special constables, there being no appearance of military force from the exterior of the house. At about nine o'clock the cheering of many voices was heard in the distance from the direction of Stow Hill producing the utmost alarm as evidenced by the countenances of those inhabitants who appeared at their windows. A few minutes after the front ranks of the numerous body of men armed with guns, swords, pikes, bludgeons and a variety of rude weapons made their appearance and wheeled round the corner of the hotel from Stow Hill with more observance of regularity in movement than is usual for rioters to display; an observer who saw the movement down Stow Hill calculates this body of Chartists must have amounted to five thousand men.

When the head of the column arrived at the Westgate, the rear ranks were at the house of Mr. Sallows and they appeared to be almost twelve abreast. The leading ranks then formed in front of the house and a large body made an attempt to enter the yard leading to the stables but found the gates strongly secured against them. They then wheeled to the portico of the inn holding their guns and other weapons in a menacing manner and called out as t'was understood "Give us up the Prisoners" (those that had been captured during the previous night by the special constables). A volley was immediately discharged at the windows of the house which broke almost every pane of glass within the frames on the lower floor and they made a rush into the passage a dense crowd forcing the special constables to fly from the points of their pikes. At this critical moment the soldiers who were in the large lower room of the eastern wing fired over the shutters which were nearly mid-way up the window but it was supposed that the balls passed over the heads of the visitors. The shutters were soon removed and Mr. Philips the undaunted Mayor, Lieutenant Grey and Sergeant Daly of the 45th appeared at the window. The Mayor had the Riot Act in his hand and appeared as if about to address or exhort the insurgents when he received a slug through the left arm (a rather severe flesh wound) near the wrist. Sergeant Daly was wounded in the forehead (with two slugs made from lead apparently taken from a window frame), he was hit on the peak of his cap the stiff leather of which prevented his being killed on the spot. The firing of the troops was steady and murderous both on the rioters in front of the hotel and on those who rushed into the premises. Several unhappy wretches fell in view of the people inside.

During the melee the Mayor was again wounded and had two providential escapes of life. A Chartist was about to pierce his body with a pike when he was shot by a soldier and secondly he was near being shot by one of the military who in the smoke produced by the firing mistaking Mr. Philips for one of the foe levelled his piece at him (then only at half cock) and would have fired but for a person who happily turned the muzzle of the gun aside and the Mayor announcing himself. The heat of the conflict lasted about a quarter of an hour when the defeated Chartists took to their heels in all directions, throwing away their arms and abandoning their dead and dying, and we are credibly informed that the Chartists at the rear of the column up Stow Hill fled across the fields below the church and in all directions scattering their weapons as they went and appearing panic stricken on hearing the roll of the musketry. Many who suffered in the fight crawled away, some exhibiting frightful wounds and glaring eyes wildly crying for mercy and seeking shelter from the charitable; others desperately maimed were carried by the hands of humanity for medical aid, and a few of the miserable objects that were helplessly and mortally wounded continued to writhe in torture, presenting in their gory agonies a dismal and impressive example to any of the political seducers or the seduced who might have been within view and a sickening and melancholy spectacle for the eye of the philanthropist.

Besides the injuries which were unfortunately sustained by Mr. Philips and Sergeant Daly we regret to state that Mr. Henry. Williams, Ironmonger of this town was wounded severely and Mr. Morgan, Draper, of the Waterloo House, Commercial Street received a gun shot wound, the ball was extracted and it is consoling to hear that at the latest moment of our enquiries that the wounded are doing well.

After the dispersal of the rioters, the slain chartists nine in number at the Westgate were placed in the yard of the inn and. presented a deplorable sight. Many of the inhabitants of the town went to see them and curses both loud and deep were uttered against the men who brought the unfortunate wretches to be thus sacrificed in the criminal purpose of forwarding by murder their infamous and destructive projects.

While witnessing this scene a withering passage in the catalogue of human woes took place, a young woman who had forced her way through the crowd of spectators in the yard no sooner got a view of the dead than she uttered a heart-rendering shriek and threw herself upon one of the bodies. The gush of fondness and of sorrow was great, she was dragged from him she loved, the blood of the fallen rioter having smeared her face and arms. There were other pitiable circumstances that might be set down as episodes the recital of which might cause a sigh even from the bosoms where the flame of hate burns but time urges to the recital of the leading facts.

The areas about Newport had literally swarmed with workmen from mining districts armed in various ways and it was said that upwards of ten thousand men within twenty minutes march from the town were waiting orders from the Chartist Chiefs. The Pontypool Road teemed with them and in one quarter alone the hills about Pen-y-lan farm there could not be less than three thousand. Several persons were stopped in coming to town and taken as prisoners and as far as we can learn not injured. A gentleman connected with the Merlin coming from Crindau to Newport was stopped and questioned, he expostulated with the men who had his collar and jostled him but did not experience much violence at the request of a person who seemed to have some influence with the detaining party, he was allowed to enter Newport. Mr. Brough of Pontypool and others were brought from the country and kept as prisoners all night. Numerous houses of parties on the hills were entered and searched for arms and all weapons found there were taken. Some Videttes who were sent from Newport to observe the state of the roads met with rough handling by the Chartists. Two gentlemen had a very narrow escape with their lives after being pursued by armed men in a wood who were urged on to kill them. Mr. Walker of the Parrot was badly wounded in the thigh.

The night was most tempestuous and the rain fell in torrents. The state of the weather, providentially, was a great cause of the failure of concentration amongst the thousands of disaffected. Had the night been favourable there would have been according to numerous concurring statements probably twenty thousand men within an hours march of Newport by three o'clock in the morning. The Chartists and the host of the poor unwilling creatures whom they forced along with them were exposed to the inclemency of the night for hours. Their ammunition was spoilt, and hungry and spiritless they sought shelter in vain.

Many of the scouts who had been prowling about Newport for information during the night were captured by the special constables who in this respect did good service and shall have honourable mention when we are able to ascertain the names of the most active. And above all as fortunate for the cause of Order and justice the insurgent leaders seemed to have egregiously blundered with respect to the movements of their most effective and best armed Chartists.

Had the attack been made as it was resolved upon in the middle of the night or even earlier in the morning before a single soldier was on duty in Newport our readers may judge what would have been the fate of the town. Among the precautionary measures taken by the Mayor on Monday morning were the distribution of public notices, the following with many other bills issued as soon as possible from the Merlin office were circulated through the town and neighbourhood:

Borough of Newport - County of Monmouth

The Justices of the Borough strictly require all persons who have been sworn in as Special Constables of the Borough to attend at the Westgate at nine o'clock this morning in order to perform active duty.

Dated this 4th day of November, 1839
By Order of the Justices.

Our Sovereign Lady the Queen strictly chargeth and commendeth all persons being assembled immediately to disperse themselves and depart to their habitations or to their lawful business upon the pains contained in the Act made in the first year of George for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies.

God Save the Queen

Borough of Newport 4th November, 1839
The Riot Act has been read by Order of Justice.

Aspects of Chartism: 1848 the year of revolution?

The downturn in the European economy in 1847 led to the revival of revolution in Europe in 1848 with the possibility of renewed violence in Britain and Ireland. A revolutionary upheaval swept across the continent after the fall of the French monarchy in February 1848 and this seemed, at least initially, to promise as never before the realisation of the dream of a democratic and constitutional system of European government. Chartism had already begun to revive before the news from France was added impetus to the movement.

Discrediting Chartism

O’Connor was elected to the House of Commons in the general election of 1847 as one of the MPs for Nottingham and fear that his victory would be challenged reinvigorated the NCA in his support. The NCA launched a new National Petition in favour of the Charter and arranged mass meetings to whip up support. The movement was now centred on London where both the NCA and the Northern Star were now based. The first wave of rioting occurred in early March but there was little about this that was specifically ‘Chartist’. A demonstration on 6^th March at Trafalgar Square to protest against the proposed rise in income tax (hardly an issue of immediate concern to most Chartists) was banned and led to rioting. It took the police, who were caught unprepared, three days to restore order. 127 rioters were arrested, two-thirds of whom were between sixteen and twenty-two.

However, elsewhere there were more serious threats to the authorities. In Glasgow, several thousand unemployed, reported to be mainly Irish, complained about the quality of food being provided by the Relief Committee and resorted to looting local shops including gunsmiths. A barricade was erected and three people were killed as soldiers fired to clear the threatening crowds. A similar though less violent riot took place in Edinburgh on 8^th and 9^th March. In Manchester, the unemployed rioted at the imposition of oakum picking by the poor law authorities but were dealt with by the police. On 17^th March, the Chartists held a demonstration at Kennington Common that was followed by some looting in Camberwell. On the same day, a Chartist meeting in Salford voted a congratulatory address to the French people and a Chartist-Irish Confederate alliance was cemented. On both occasions, the authorities enrolled special constables.

The authorities were undoubtedly nervous as the day for the presentation of the Petition drew near. There were heightened expectations on both sides throughout the country and reports of Chartists arming and drilling on the moors anticipating the rejection of the Petition. The Chartist Convention met in London on 4^th April and arranged to present the petition on 10^th April. The plan was to hold a large demonstration at Kennington Commons after which the Petition would be taken in procession to the House of Commons. This was seen by the government as very intimidating and it was concerned to prevent London sliding into revolution as had already occurred in Paris. Initially, the government considered banning the meeting but recognised that this would probably be counter-productive but they did ban the procession and took massive precautions to prevent the Chartists crossing the river. 85,000 special constables were sworn in; many were workmen enrolled to defend their places of work and possibly to prevent them attending the meeting. 4,000 police were positioned on the bridges and in the vicinity of Parliament and 8,000 troops were held in reserve. Estimates of the number of Chartists ranged from the official 15,000 to O’Connor’s inflated 400,000 with historians today giving a figure of 150,000.

The Chartists had always intended the meeting and procession to be peaceful. The mythology of Kennington Common as a ‘fiasco’ was largely created in retrospect. This view needs revision in three important respects:

• Most people were not laughing until it was all over and this is extremely clear from diaries kept at the time by prominent figures. The build up to 10^th April had been government policy partly to overawe and discredit the Chartists and partly to impress foreign governments that had shown themselves unable to cope with their own revolutionary crowds.
• The ‘fiasco’ effect was in part planned by the government to discredit the Chartists.
• From the point of view of revolutionary threat, the worst was still to come.

One of the advantages of the defeat of Chartism was its impact on the Irish. The major event on 13^th April was not the discrediting of the Charter but the debate on the bill for ‘the more effectual repression of seditious and treasonable proceedings’ in Ireland. This Treason-Felony Act was followed by 22^nd July by the suspension of Habeas Corpus in Ireland where the situation had deteriorated partly as a result of nationalist anger over the handling of the famine and the political realignment that followed O’Connell’s death.

An Irish-Chartist alliance?

The Nation was started in October 1842 by a group of romantic nationalists including Charles Gaven Duffy. They did not favour violence and were opposed to the Chartists. This moderation was maintained, even after the miseries of the famine had begun, by Duffy and William Smith O’Brien in secession in early 1847 from O’Connell’s Repeal Association, known as the Irish Confederation. A minority of the Confederates took up the cause of tenant rights and in early 1848 two of the group, John Mitchel and Thomas Devlin Reilly set up their own newspaper, the United Irishman in rivalry with the Nation. The news from France brought the two groups closer together. O’Brien called for the formation of a National Guard, for which he was tried but acquitted for sedition. The Confederates established a working relationship with the Chartists, something O’Connor had always wanted but which had been thwarted while O’Connell lived.

The old fear of a Franco-Irish alliance in revolution was revived and the government acted quickly to minimise it. By the end of March, Britain had already agreed a pact of mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs with the French Provisional Government. If the Irish were to rise successfully, they would have to look to their own resources and that meant looking to the Irish in Britain to cause a diversion and to North America for military support. The threat of a Chartist-Confederate alliance was considerable. By 1848, London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford and smaller British towns like Barnsley and Ashton had considerable Irish minorities. In Bradford and Ashton, even in 1841, ten per cent of the population was Irish. In London, Confederate clubs had been spreading since the autumn of 1847 and on 4^th April 1848 they came together with the Chartists at a meeting arranged by the Fraternal Democrats. In Glasgow, pikes were being manufactured at Anderston. In Liverpool, ships from North Americas were searched on entering British waters and the police in Dublin had ordered to arrest all returning immigrants and search them for treasonable papers. In Bradford, throughout April and May there were reports of drilling and pikes being made. The threat to the government had not evaporated after 10^th April.

The impending trial of John Mitchel provided the background to mounting unrest in the early summer of 1848. He had been arrested on 22^nd March for publishing seditious articles in the United Irishman and was to be tried under the new Treason-Felony Act. There was widespread fear of a rising should he be convicted. In London, the Chartist Convention had been replaced by a National Assembly on 1^st May. A New Plan of Organisation had been agreed similar to that used by the United Irishmen in the late 1790s, with a basic unit of ten men to a class and ten classes to a ward. The structure was both flexible and opaque lending itself to conspiratorial organisations that in the localities easily merged with local Irish Confederate clubs. At the same time, regular outdoor meetings were held especially in East London. Chartism at this level was more active than ever. Mitchel was tried on 25^th and 26^th May and sentenced to death, though this was later commuted to fourteen years’ transportation. Meetings in his support were held at Clerkenwell Green during the trial and on 28^th May between ten and twelve thousand people gathered on the Green.

The following evening several thousand gathered again and marched towards Trafalgar Square. They were joined by another 3,000 who had been listening to speeches by Ernest Jones and other Chartist leaders on Stepney Green. They marched through the West End and the crowd was estimated at between 50,000 and 60,000 strong. The main procession was peaceful but there was some marginal rioting and on 30^th May the police banned all assemblies and processions in the capital. Meetings continued: on 31^st May at Clerkenwell Green and in Bonner’s Fields on 4^th June where Ernest Jones was the main speaker, troops stood by while police cleared the crowds. These and smaller meetings, often unannounced so reporters could not be present to collect evidence to man a prosecution, were gradually wearing down the police and demoralised property owners in the neighbourhood of the meetings. Finally, warrants were issued for the arrest of the leading speakers including Jones.

The culmination of these meetings came on Whit Monday, 12^th June at Bonner’s Field. The government banned all meetings and called up over 5,000 troops and 4,000 police. David Goodway[1] concluded that ‘The Chartist leadership would probably have welcomed the Bonner’s Fields demonstration developing into a rising’. However, the only member of the Chartist Executive left in London was Peter Murray McDouall. He sized up the situation and called the meeting off; bad weather did the rest. That evening, at the Albion beershop in Bethnel Green Road, McDouall planned an insurrection but it was called off two days later on the instructions of the Chartist Executive; spies had been detected. Nothing further happened until 10^th July when the conspirators resumed their meetings independently of the Chartist Executive, though it soon came to know of the plot. On 20^th July, a secret committee was formed to plan the day of insurrection planned for 16^th August. Then, on 27^th July, came the news that Smith O’Brien had attempted a rising in Ireland, that it had been a complete failure and that the leaders had all been arrested. Neither this, nor the realistic and justified fear of spies, deterred the conspirators.

Bradford

The conspiracy was not just based in London, for events in London since April had been repeated elsewhere. The authorities were particularly concerned about Manchester, Liverpool and Bradford where the situation was seen as especially dangerous. Bradford had become a centre of the worsted trade and had only acquired its police force in 1847. This numbered 69 men or one to every 1,343 inhabitants. With such a small force, the mayor was powerless to stop Chartist activity. Isaac Jefferson, a blacksmith was one of the leading Chartists with a powerbase in Adelaide Street, off Manchester Road, an area densely packed with unemployed wool combers. On 13^th May, the police attempted to arrest him but were beaten off by the inhabitants. The reluctance of the mayor to intervene was quite understandable. On 23^rd May, McDouall made a seditious speech with impunity at a mass meeting in the town. At this point, the Home Office decided that action would have to be taken.

With a large Irish population and perhaps half the Chartists in Bradford were Irish, the Mitchel verdict was going to be very important. Magistrates were informed that the intention, as in Scotland, was to tie troops up and prevent them being sent to Ireland. On 27^th May, extra troops arrived brining their numbers up to 800 and 1,500 special constables were sworn in. On Sunday 28^th May, the magistrates finally decided to act and the following morning sent the police into Adelaide Street to arrest Jefferson and to search for arms. The police and specials got no further than the corner of Adelaide Street before being driven back by the inhabitants to the court house. The protestors then marched through the streets singing Chartist songs. Troops were sent for. The police were armed with cutlasses. Together with 1,000 special constables, 200 infantry with fixed bayonets and two troops of dragoons, the mob was pushed back into their homes. Nineteen arrests were made but the leaders escaped. The Chartists subsided but quickly resumed their meetings. Jefferson was arrested on 16^th July but was rescued by the mob. On 15^th August, the magistrates reported that pikes were being made as the Chartists waited for news from Manchester of the general rising. If the signal came, they had 4,000 men ready to take the town.

Liverpool

It was not until after Mitchel’s conviction that the number of Irish clubs in Liverpool grew under the direction of a central Club Council. This was similar to the New Plan of Organisation in London and provided a highly co-ordinated, secret organisation from which an insurrection could easily develop. The intention, as elsewhere, was to detain troops in England. With a quarter of the population of Liverpool Irish, this clearly presented the authorities with a major problem. The situation was worsened by reports from the United States where the Irish Republican Union had been formed to extend to Ireland the republican freedom enjoyed in the United States. This involved raising an Irish Brigade that would return home under the guise of disillusioned emigrants to fight for the Irish cause.

More troops were sent to the city after opposition hardened with Mitchel’s conviction. More police were appointed to what was the largest police force outside London and there were gunboats on the River Mersey. Unlike Bradford, there was very little Chartist involvement. The unrest in Liverpool was an extension of the Irish problem. On 25^th July, the day Habeas Corpus was suspended in Ireland, a a thousand signature petition from Liverpool asked for the Suspension Act to apply to their city as well. Towards the end of July, the corporation was unable to pay for any more troops to be billeted and decisive action was taken by the police. The arrests that followed, the departure of Terence Bellew McManus, the leader of the protests for Ireland to join the rebellion and then news of its failure, enabled the magistrates to take control of what was potentially a dangerous situation.

Manchester

The Irish adopted a club system in Manchester as they had done in Liverpool and again the rhythm of protest followed the history of the Mitchel trial with a mass meeting in Stevenson Square planned for 31^st May and a call for a one-day strike. Magistrates banned the meeting and police and soldiers turned back contingents from Oldham and Ashton as they marched down the turnpikes to Manchester. There were some disturbances in the town but no serious rioting. On 6^th June, Ernest Jones arrived to deliver the speech he had given two days earlier in London. Next morning, he was arrested. On Whit Monday, 12^th June, in common with other towns, Manchester held a meeting to protest at Mitchel’s conviction and in support of the Charter but there was little disorder.

Revolution

Magistrates now began to arrest leaders throughout the country but the more they arrested the more they drove the rest into desperate action. As in London, it was now that secret plotting for a rising began. On 18^th July, a delegate meeting on Blackstone Edge, high in the Pennines between Halifax and Rochdale, decided that moral force had failed and that the time had come for direct action. The plan was for Lancashire to rise on 15^th August, followed by Bradford the day after, the same day as the rising in London.

The government knew of the plans in advance through its system of informers. On the night of 14^th August, seventy armed Chartists left Oldham for Manchester and at Ashton-under-Lyne the Chartists paraded with their arms just before midnight. One policeman was killed before the military arrived. In Hyde, a mob began drawing the boiler plugs. The following evening, 15^th August, three hundred police simultaneously arrested the Chartist and Confederate leaders in Manchester. The rising was aborted so the signal was never sent to Bradford. On the next night, the metropolitan police raided the taverns where the London rising was about to begin. The revolution was over and the gaols were filled.

The conspiracy of 1848 was the last of the attempts at revolution that began in the 1790s. The violence was less widespread than in 1842 and nothing so spectacular as the Newport rising of 1839, but as a conspiracy it was probably the most serious since 1817 and 1819. With its French and especially Irish dimensions, it was comparable to the revolutionary plotting of the 1790s but this time the French were not interested and the Irish too affected by the famine to provide the lead their compatriots in exile looked for. The scale of the subversive activity has been all but expunged from historical memory. Chartism in 1848 increasingly came to be seen as the ‘fiasco’ of 10^th April. As economic conditions improved in the 1850s and as working people were viewed as more ‘respectable’ in their economic and political aspirations, the notion that working people in Victorian Britain could threaten revolution became increasingly inconceivable and dropped out of the historical canon. It was not until historians began to look seriously at the events of 1848 and question the ‘grand narrative’ contrived by Gammage, Hovell and the rest that the significance and potential threat of revolution in 1848 was recognised.

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[1] David Goodway London Chartism 1838-1848, Cambridge University Press, 1982, page 86.