Newport Rising

On 4 November 1839 thousands of Chartists marched on Newport under leaders including John Frost. The movement grew from demands for the People’s Charter and from anger among industrial workers who remained excluded from political power. The march culminated in an exchange of fire at the Westgate Hotel.

At least twenty Chartists were killed and many more were arrested. Frost and other leaders were convicted of high treason; their death sentences were commuted to transportation. The rising became the most dramatic armed episode in British Chartism and provides the historical centre of Alexander Cordell’s Requiem for a Patriot.