Welsh History

Lesson 5: A New Identity

Discontent

The infamous Corn Laws, passed in Parliament in 1815, kept the price of bread artificially high to benefit the landed interests and wealthy farmers. In an attempt to better conditions, workers tentatively began to form unions, but their members were treated harshly. At the Abbey Works in Neath, for example, in the 1820's, when fifty men tried to form a union they were immediately fired. The times were not yet ripe for the general acceptance of unionism.

With the failure of the unions to win concessions, however, a new way was sought to improve working conditions (and a way to keep workers in line with union rules). In Monmouthshire, a group called the "Scotch Cattle" began a reign of terror in the valleys, destroying property of employers and threatening many workers who refused to go along with their demands.

Early in 1831, beginning as a popular protest against unjust and often deplorable working and living conditions, the Merthyr rising quickly grew into a full-scale, armed rebellion. Miners and ironworkers joined the political radicals and disgruntled tradesmen. The crowd raised the red flag of rebellion -- the first time it was used in Britain. A troop of Scots Highlanders was sent from Brecon Barracks to restore order; and when the large crowds of rioters appeared outside the Castle Inn, the troopers opened fire.

In the resulting panic, over two dozen workers were killed and hundreds wounded. It took a week to bring order to the area. Punishment was severe. Richard Lewis, known as Dic Penderyn, was sentenced to death on a charge of wounding a Highlander. On 31 July, 1831, he was hanged. The martyrdom of Dic Penderyn is well remembered in Wales, but in England there seems to have been general indifference.

In the Carmarthen area, the most tangible and visible symbols of oppression were the numerous tollgates on the turnpike roads, with their crushing fees.

One night in May, 1839, gates at Efailwen, outside Carmarthen, were destroyed when a group of about 400 people gathered to protest the tolls. The leader of the protestors, reputed to be Thomas Rees, known locally as Twm Carnabwth, was disguised in the clothes of a local woman named Rebecca. Thus the term "Rebecca Riots' came to designate the disturbances, including the burning and destroying of toll gates and work houses that continued for some years in Southwest Wales.

It was not until a government commission recommended reduction of tolls, especially on lime and other agricultural products, that the riots finally came to an end.

The rise of the movement known as Chartism constituted a far more serious threat to public order. The Chartists were part of a new popular movement named after the radical London reformer Williams Levett, who drafted a bill known as "The People's Charter" in May 1838. The Chartists believed that they could somehow bring about a democratic parliament and an enfranchised working class.

The aims of the Chartists were simple enough: universal male suffrage, vote by ballot, equal electoral districts, annual parliaments, abolition of the property qualifications for election to Parliament, and payment for members (so that it could be open to all classes).

Rather than consider such radical ideas, and to safeguard their positions of privilege in Parliament, the government took measures to suppress the movement, ruthlessly if necessary. Many of those who had taken part in a riot at Llanidloes were found guilty and deported for life.

In November came the Newport Rising. As described in the Cambrian, up to 5,000 armed rioters "from the hills" entered Newport in three columns, one being commanded by John Frost. In a heavy rainstorm, they marched to the Westgate Hotel, where a small detachment of military waited inside. Accounts of what happened next vary, but it appears that someone opened fire on the soldiers, who responded with a volley into the crowd.

The whole affair lasted no more than twenty minutes though repercussions lasted for more than a century in the political life of South Wales and Monmouthshire.

Harsh sentences followed the arrest of the Chartist leaders. Frost, Jones, and Rees were sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering; but the sentence was later commuted to one of life imprisonment in Australia.

By 1858, the year of the final National Chartist Convention, the movement began to fade away. That year an act was passed declaring that property qualifications were no longer necessary for a seat in Parliament, and thus the first great democratizing point of the Charter had been conceded by the Government. The Corn Laws had been repealed in 1846 and bread was a little cheaper; people were less inclined to armed revolt.

The Great Reform Bill of 1867 finally ended the Chartist Movement, for it added nearly one million voters to the register, almost doubling the electorate. Forty-five new seats were created, and the vote given to many working people. In the meantime, conditions in Wales ensured that she was forced to continue the struggle to retain her separate identity and her precious language.