TO IMMERSE yourself in the world of the Chartists, the place to go is Newport Museum in, appropriately, John Frost Square.
Walk past the prehistoric remains, past the suffragette banner, past the model of the Transporter Bridge, past the amazing Roman floor mosaic from Caerwent, past the cider press from Abergaveny to the back of the museum, where you will find a treasure trove of items, images and documents about the Chartists.
We are reminded of the conditions of the time by using the interactive ‘truck shop’; trying to make ends meet while paying the inflated prices charged in the shops controlled by the employers of the ironworkers and colliers who formed the backbone of the Chartist march.
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Pride of place goes to the display of fearsome weapons the Chartists brought with them to the Westgate, some of which are said to have been seized by local bigwig Octavius Morgan and displayed at the trial of the leaders of the Rising - pikes, pistols and bags of lead shot, perhaps forged in the Chartist cave, perhaps in the backstreet workshops of Newport - an iron helmet covered with cloth that was once displayed in a Newport shop window.
Against these, a truncheon marked ‘VR’ carried by a local special constable, another owned by J H Clark, head of the ‘specials’ in Usk and, more deadly, a ‘Brown Bess’ musket originally kept at Pontypool Park for the local militia.
Some items found their way back to Newport just by chance.
A man searching for a piece of metal plate in a scrapyard in Essex, having bought his dirty and discoloured purchase home and cleaned it up, discovered that it was inscribed with a list of names.
It turned out to be a list of subscribers who presented an 800 piece silver service to Thomas Phillips, Mayor of Newport, in recognition of his role in resisting the Rising.
We are reminded that, far from opposing all change, Phillips was an active reformer by a silver cup engraved in tribute to "his able assistance in promoting the cause of reform in Parliament".
John Frost himself features prominently through a front room ‘just like’ John Frost’s when he owned a draper’s shop in the High Street, and a bust of Frost made in 1918, the first official recognition locally of the role of the Chartists in fighting for democracy.
If you haven’t been, get yourself down there and have a look.
If you’ve already been, go again and you will come out realising how much you missed on your first visit.
This is part of a series of features marking the 180th anniversary of the Newport Uprising.
- John Frost's Newport was a town on the up
- What did policing look like in the days of the Newport Uprising?
- School pupils continue the Chartist legacy 180 years on
- The Newport Uprising in the words of the people who saw it happen
- Newport Rising Festival remembers Chartists' fight for democracy
- Newport's Chartist landmarks
- From traitors to heroes - how attitudes to the Chartists have changed
- Take a look inside Newport's historic Westgate Hotel
- Political figures pay tribute to 'pivotal moment in our democratic history' as Newport Rising anniversary approaches
- Remembering Alexander Cordell, the novelist who inspired so many to explore Newport's Chartist history
- The story of the Westgate Hotel and its central role in Chartist Uprising
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