The life of Henry Vincent

Henry Vincent was without doubt the great orator of the Chartist movement. An early member of the London Working Men’s Association, he was soon sent off on tour to establish similar bodies across Yorkshire, before moving to Bristol where he also launched the Western Vindicator newspaper.

If he had not already been arrested and imprisoned for his seditious speeches at Newport in South Wales, he would almost certainly have suffered the same fate as his friend John Frost and found himself transported to Australia following the Newport uprising. As it was, he emerged from prison in 1841 to marry and forge a new life for himself.

I’ve written a biography of Vincent for the main Chartist Ancestors website. You can find it here.

Talking Chartism: the video is here

I recently spent a very enjoyable hour and a half chatting about all things Chartism with professional genealogist Natalie at Genealogy Stories. You can watch the first hour of our conversation below.

This was a completely unscripted and unplanned talk (at least on my part), so please excuse the ums and ahhs, and any stories I launched into before getting sidetracked.

In part two, which you can access through Natalie's website, we talked a little about what happened to Chartism after 1848, and rather more about some interesting Chartists, including William Cuffay and Susanna Inge.

On the whole, I am really pleased with how it came out - although there are so many things I didn't get round to talking about, and of course if I'd prepared an answer to every question I might well have looked at alternative interpretations of some events. 

Natalie herself did a great job, and was very easy to talk to. Do check out Genealogy Stories where she has a growing collection of interviews along with some other great family history resources.

Chartism Day 2017: from biscuits and salt pork for the troops to surrealist Chartist images and a lost letter

Some 20 years on from the first ever Chartism Day, each year’s event still brings word of archive discoveries, exciting new images and innovative ways of “doing history” that shed light on the people who made up the Chartist movement and how they thought and acted.

Chartism Day 2017 was no exception. Organised by Dr Katrina Navickas and colleagues from the University of Hertfordshire history department, this year’s conference visited Heronsgate – better known to those with an interest in Chartism as O’Connorville.

John Frost and a lifelong commitment to the Chartism of 1839

John Frost was the first of the Chartist martyrs. As leader of the Newport rising of 1839, he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to a traitors death before wiser counsel saw him reprieved and banished instead to penal servitude in Tasmania.

But what happened to Frost and to the other leaders of the abortive attempt to seize the town after their arrest, and what did Frost have to say of his experience when he finally returned to his homeland in 1856?

Actor Michael Sheen opens Newport Chartist exhibition

Newport-born actor Michael Sheen officially opened the Chartist exhibition at Newport Museum and Art Gallery on Wednesday 7 April 2010 (see picture below).

Speaking at the opening, Michael Sheen, said: “I was delighted to be at the opening of the exhibition and back in the city of my birth. It is an honour to be associated with the exhibition as the Chartists are one of the most important political movements of our times.

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.

Newport Chartist John Frost

John Frost is one of the best known figures in Chartism. His fame comes from his ill-fated leadership of the Newport rebellion in December 1839, his subsequent transportation to Australia, and the campaign that led eventually to his return.

The second in our series of profiles and sketch portraits taken from William Lovett’s newspaper, The Charter, is of John Frost, who was at that time serving as delegate from his home town to the General Convention of the Industrious Classes.

In addition to The Charter’s somewhat unflattering physical description of Frost, there is plenty of related material on Chartist Ancestors, including:
* Lovett’s later account of the Convention and a list of delegates
* the story of the Newport rebellion and
* A list of contributors to the Frost Defence Fund

Read more about John Frost.

1,000 backers of John Frost

Around 1,000 Chartist contributors to the Frost Defence Fund are now named in a page on Chartist Ancestors.

Most Chartists were taken wholly by surprise by the Newport rebellion (pictured left) and were shocked by its bloody failure. Its leader, John Frost, was, after all, among the least likely of the more prominent Chartists to have become involved in such a scheme.

Though there is now good evidence that similar risings were being prepared for the North of England as part of a co-ordinated insurrection to force a change of government, neither Feargus O’Connor nor most of the Chartist leadership were aware of the plans.

Once they had got over their surprise, however, thousands of Chartists began to pour contributions into a defence fund set up to provide Frost and his co-conspirators with the best legal aid. Even with this fund behind them, they were at first sentenced to death.

The Northern Star provided two huge lists of contributors to the Frost Defence Fund. The first, published on 18 January 1840 listed 1,345 donors. Not all used their real names – and many hid behind descriptions such as "A Friend of Frost". But many are traceable individuals.

This list appears on Chartist Ancestors now.

A second, slightly shorter, list appeared the following week. I have not yet transcribed this, but will add it when I can.

Although money continued to pour in after this date, the editor of the Northern Star realised that if he continued to acknowledge every contribution, no matter how small, he would rapidly run out of space for anything else. On 1 February, he called an end to individual listings.

There is more about the Newport rebellion on Chartist Ancestors here.

A day off for the Chartists

Should we have a new bank holiday to commemorate the Chartists who took up arms in Newport in 1839?

Paul Flynn, the Labour MP for Newport West (pictured right), believes that we should. He has put down an early day motion in Parliament calling for the Monday nearest 4 November (the date of the uprising) to be declared Democracy Day.

So far he has gathered the support of 24 MPs for the proposed bank holiday which would also stand as a tribute to the suffragettes, those who took part in the Putney debates of 1647 and other pioneering democrats down the ages.

The full text of the EDM reads:

"That this House believes that the pioneering sacrifices of those who sowed the seeds of British democracy should be celebrated with a new Bank Holiday on the Monday nearest to 4th November, the anniversary of the killing of more than 20 Chartist insurgents in Newport in 1839, recalling other significant events in the history of the Suffragettes (1903) and the Putney debates (1647); and calls for a fresh appreciation of the value of the courage and vision of past generations in order to defend, promote and develop Britain's democratic institutions."

Click here and you can see the current signature count.

It should be noted that the campaign probably stands very little chance of success, and that others are campaigning to have a Magna Carta Day on 15 June, or a Trafalgar Day on 21 October.

Chartism? Never heard of it

If you are reading this, then you probably have at least some interest in Chartism. But to what extent does that mark you out as unusual?

When researchers from Heritage in Action (Herian) stopped 110 people outside the Westgate Hotel in Newport, the site of the Chartist uprising of 1839, they found that two out of three (67%) had never heard of Chartism.

Among the one in three that had, only one in five (or just eight people in all) claimed to know what the Chartist cause was all about. (The full results can be seen here in a Powerpoint presentation.)

Intriguingly, half those that claimed to have heard of Chartism could name John Frost, the former mayor of Newport and a leading figure in the rising. Still more could name a monument to Chartism in the town – but this may not have been too much of a challenge as there is one outside the Westgate Hotel itself.

Focus groups organised by the locally based Herian in Newport and Merthyr to get a more rounded picture found that people tended to think of local history as something that had happened within the past 50 to 100 years.

Few in either focus group knew much about Chartism, and younger people in particular were put off by the idea of "industrial" heritage – a word which meant little to them and was seen as boring.

The idea of the vote also did relatively little to inspire. What captured the imagination was the unity of the marchers, and the violent aspects of the protest. Words such as "riot", "rebellion" and "revolution" pushed more buttons than "democracy".

Perhaps astonishingly, "democracy" was thought to be "too political".

The research has been used to help shape the Chartist Weekend events in Newport, set for 3 and 4 November, which focuses on how the vote was won. If the journey is a realistic one, then why not go along and lend your support.

Row over Newport Chartist mural goes to Downing Street

A mural created nearly 30 years ago in the centre of Newport to mark the Chartist uprising of 1839 is under threat.

With the city centre being redeveloped, the whole set of buildings where the mural is located are to be torn down. The local authority is insisting that the developers must either relocate the mural or create a new one.

This has provoked some debate in the city, which is proud of its Chartist heritage.

Some insist that the original artwork must be retained and relocated. Others say that since it is currently in a " narrow dimly-lit urine-soaked 1960s tunnel" attached to a crumbling multi-storey car park, the 1978 mural is beyond saving.

Never having been to the city, I have no idea who is right and who is wrong. Newport City Council has set out its position, and the South Wales Argus reported on the plans back in April and generated quite a debate.

The row prompted ten-year-old Carlton French to start a petition on the 10 Downing Street website urging that the original artwork should be saved, and history lecturer Les James raised the issue at a European conference on history teaching.

How excellent that Chartism is still causing a furore in Newport 150 years on.