In the latest in a series of features marking the 180th anniversary of the Newport Uprising, Peter Strong explores how attitudes to the Chartists have changed over the years.

IT IS now 180 years since the Newport Chartist Rising.

Over the years attitudes of local ‘people of influence’ to the Chartists has changed considerably.

Whereas at first they were depicted as traitors who sought to plunge the country into bloodshed, now they are widely seen as heroes in the long struggle to achieve democracy, with the opening of John Frost School in 2015 marking the complete nature of the transformation.

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Even before the Rising, the Monmouthshire Merlin newspaper had made its hostility to Chartism clear.

In August 1839 it declared: "We have never ceased raising our voices against that Document, impudently and mendaciously termed 'the People’s Charter'."

As Professor Chris Williams has noted, following the Rising John Frost was portrayed in the local press as a madman, while the mayor, Thomas Phillips was treated as a hero, being knighted for his role in putting down the Chartists.

Although many of his supporters cheered John Frost through the streets when he returned to Newport in 1856, they were forbidden from using a local theatre for a celebration. When Frost died in 1877, the Merlin called Chartism "a treasonable movement".

Those in authority were doing their best to get the town to forget Chartism.

The 50th anniversary in 1889 was ignored.

The Merlin commented that the only celebration at the Westgate in November was in honour of Guy Fawkes.

But by the early 20th century, attitudes were changing.

By 1918 five of the six points of the People’s Charter had been granted.

Even those who in an earlier age would have opposed Chartism were starting to see it as part of the movement towards democracy.

In 1918 Lord Rhondda, the great South Wales coal owner, agreed to unveil a bust of John Frost at Newport Museum (although he died before he could do so).

South Wales Argus:

The first official tribute: the bust of John Frost in Newport museum. Picture: Newport Museum and Art Gallery

CENTENARY

By the time of the centenary of the Rising the change in attitude was clear.

In 1938 Newport Council set up a Centenary Celebration Committee under local businessman William Mordey and including representatives of all political parties, from Conservative to Communist - plus the editor of the Argus.

Chartism was now seen as a way of ‘advertising the town and county’.

With the looming threat of war with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, it also represented a way of celebrating democracy against dictatorship.

The South Wales Miners Federation (the miners’ union) used the May Day celebrations in 1939 to organise a massive pageant in Abertillery Park which portrayed Chartism as a key part in the rise of the trade union movement.

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Thousands of participants and spectators were involved, including no less than fifteen choirs and bands.

The outbreak of war in 1939 meant that the centenary celebrations had to be scaled back.

Nevertheless, Newport Museum staged a special exhibition and over 200 people gathered at the Post Office building in the High Street, close to Frost’s birthplace, where a plaque in his memory was unveiled.

South Wales Argus:

John Frost plaque on Post Office building. The plaque was unveiled in 1939 in a very visible position, above the ‘public stamp machine’ at the main post office in the High Street.

Newport Council ensured the memory was kept alive when the town centre was redeveloped in the 1960s, naming the central square after John Frost and in 1978 commissioning the famous mural by Kenneth Budd.

In the 1980s Newport Local History Society played a prominent role in ensuring that a plaque commemorating the dead Chartists was erected in St Woolos churchyard and initiated an annual ceremony to place roses on the spot.

In 1839 most of the local business owners lived in fear of Chartism, but by the 21st century attitudes had changed.

In 2008 Ken Ellis, president of Newport Chamber of Trade, argued in the Argus that the Rising was an event "which we should really boast about".

South Wales Argus:

John Frost School sign

He condemned the way the Westgate Hotel had been allowed to fall victim to vandals and graffiti ‘artists’ and argued that more should be done in using Chartism to promote tourism.

The Chartist legacy still has the potential to divide opinion.

In 1986 a Conservative councillor opposed plans for the Chartist statue that now stands near the Westgate, claiming that Frost was "a miserable little rebel who should have been hung, drawn and quartered", while in 1994 local historian Hadyn Davis questioned the "continuous glorification of the riots".

More recently, the destruction of the mural to make way for the new Friars Walk shopping centre caused outrage.

Nevertheless, annual celebrations of the Chartists have become firmly established and Chartism has been firmly established as part of the identity of Newport, ‘City of Democracy’.

This is part of a series of features marking the 180th anniversary of the Newport Uprising.