200 more contributors to the Frost defence fund

The failed Chartist uprising at Newport in December 1839 came as a huge shock to many Chartists. Those who had prepared for similar rebellions across the North of England but had been dissuaded from acting must have been particularly affected by the bloody end to the Welsh rising.

With Frost and his fellow leaders at Newport facing the death penalty, and dozens more lined up for transportation or long prison sentences, Chartists dug deep into their meagre savings to provide what financial assistance they could.

The Northern Star, in the absence of any central Chartist organisation, formed the focus of this fund-raising activity, and for the first couple of weeks all donations were acknowledged individually in its pages.

The first 1,000 or so contributors to the Frost Defence Fund have been named on Chartist Ancestors for some time. I wrote about this here. A further 200 or more names are now on the same page.

After this, the Star gave up hope of listing all contributors, concluding that it would rapidly run out of space to report anything else.

For now, however, if you are looking for Susan and Samuel Rothwell of Rochdale, Samuel and Mary Buck in Naresborough, or Benjamin Yarman in Great Yarmouth around 1840, then you might just have stumbled on a Chartist ancestor.

See the names of contributors to the Frost Defence Fund.