David J. V. Jones – The Last Rising, The Newport Chartist Insurrection of 1839
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David J. V. Jones – The Last Rising, The Newport Chartist Insurrection of 1839
[University of Wales Press 1999] buy used at abebooks.co.uk If you use this link to purchase this item breviary stuff will receive 5% commission On the night of 3-4 November 1839 seven thousand miners from the coalfields of south Wales set out to march on Newport. They were an organized force, armed, angry, and intent on inaugurating a brave new Chartist world. The rising proved to be the most serious clash between people and government in modern industrial Britain: in the major confrontation between Chartists and troops in Newport more than twenty miners were shot dead, and subsequently more than 250 people were arraigned in the last mass treason trial in British history. The study tells the full story of the rising, its origins and its aftermath, and analyses the profound impact of armed insurrection on the social and political climate of the period. When the people of the coalfield took up the banner of Chartism, that movement became a political crusade. The author reveals that several revolutionary schemes were considered in the valleys, and establishes links with militants in other parts of Britain. He considers the response of the government and propertied classes – from the Special Commission that condemned three of the leaders to death, to the new interest in paternalism and the political concessions that were designed to prevent its recurrence. He concludes that contemporaries were right to regard the rising as one of the most important turning points in Welsh and British social history. Contents
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