18394 November 1839 · Newport

The Chartist Newport Rising

Period print of Chartist marchers massed outside the Westgate Hotel in Newport during the 1839 rising — Archival image: Unknown artist, People's History Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Several thousand Chartists, many of them miners and ironworkers from the valleys, marched on Newport to press for the vote for working men. Soldiers inside the Westgate Hotel fired on the crowd, killing about twenty. The leaders John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones were sentenced to death, then transported to Van Diemen's Land. Most Chartist demands later became law.

Sites

Site 1: Westgate HotelThe hotel porch where soldiers fired on the marchers; bullet marks on its pillars.Map ↗
Site 2: St Woolos CathedralChurchyard where the dead Chartists were buried at night, with a memorial plaque.Map ↗
Site 3: Newport Museum, John Frost SquareChartist gallery with banners, weapons and trial papers.Map ↗

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