I have put this list together to give some idea of the turmoil that existed in the world but most particularly Wales and even more narrowly Cardiff and the hinterland of Cardiff docks during the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
1. This blog arose as a guided tour of Cardiff. It is easy to see the historic buildings and city environment as somehow calm and untroubled. It is clear that the wealth that built many of the still visible monuments was achieved at great human cost and misery even though the struggles prompted by this misery and the wealth generated brought about many improvements in everyone's lives. I want to create a context for the people mentioned in the main body of the blog.
2. This context is important because historic buildings can often be seen as separate to the continuing narratives of history as if they have played their part and are now mere observers. It was interesting to see Cardiff Castle surrounded by the 'Freedom Fence' erected for the NATO conference that was being held in Newport, nearly twenty miles away. The site which has been a fortress for every invader and coloniser in Wales had become a redoubt for NATO in the 21st Century.
2. The rapid urbanisation that happened in Britain began in the countryside with the enclosure of common land and the rapid development of agriculture. This brought social upheaval and organised resistance. The organised resistance of rural labourers spread into the industrial centres as many of these people were displaced from the land. Life in the countryside and the city is not a polarity it is a continuum.
1715 The Riot Act was introduced as a measure to tackle unrest after a series of riots against the Whig Parliament. Anglican rioters attacked dissenters and the religious houses of dissenters. The Riot Act allowed local authorities to declare any group of more than 12 people unlawful and and thus disperse or face punitive action. The act had to be read out loud to the mob before any action could be taken to quell the crowd.
1740 Armed miners riot in Rhuddlan over low wages
1747 Birth of Edward Williams, Iolo Morgannwg: poet, 'The Bard of Liberty', antiquarian and revolutionary
1758 Cilgwyn quarrymen marched to Caernarfon to seize corn. Two die when soldiers are called in
1758 - 1783 American Revolutionary War
1789 - 1799 French Revolution
1792 Iolo Morgannwg convened the first meeting of the Gorsedd of the Island of Great Britain on Primrose Hill
1793 - 1801 Food riots throughout rural Wales
1797 the failed invasion of French soldiers at Goodwick leads to a crackdown on radicals
1880 Birth of Dr WIlliam Price: Chartist, opponent of marriage, vegetarian and radical. He fled Britain due to the government crackdown that followed the Chartist Uprising. In Paris he met Proudhon, who he considered half-hearted as he only wanted freedom for men and not women as well.
1811 - 1817 Luddites
1816 Unrest in Tredegar and Merthyr Tydfil.
1816 Troops fired warning shots in Aberystwyth during protests against enclosures
1817 Pentrich rising in Derbyshire
1818 Troops used against a crowd in Carmarthen trying to stop the export of food when people were starving in the county
1819 Protests at Abermiwl
1819 Peterloo Massacre (when militia stormed a peaceful husting in Manchester)
1820s Scotch Cattle, Monmouthshire
1822 Army open fire in Gwent during miners strike led by the Scotch Cattle
1830 Swing Riots, Kent. These against the mechanisation of farming in the South East of England and were countered by empowering magistrates to sentence rioters to transportation rather than death and to avoid using the army to suppress unrest as demanded by Tories.
1830 Battle of Chirk Bridge. Denbighshire Hussar Yeomanry called out to prevent a march by miners from Ruabon linking up with miners from Shropshire. They were protesting against the 'Truck System'; a system by which workers were paid in tokens to be redeemed for goods at shops owned by their employers.
1831 Riots in Mold and Carmarthen
1831 Merthyr Rising following the lowering of wages by William Crawshay
1831 August 13th Dic Penderyn hanged in Cardiff allegedly for stabbing a soldier. Lewis Lewis arrested at the same time transported for life.
1832 Great Reform Act
1832 -34 The Scotch Cattle protests reach their peak. In 1834 Edward Morgan was hanged in Monmouth Prison for a murder he didn't commit during an action against a miner who was breaking the strike. The Scotch Cattle were not defeated, they joined the Chartists
1833 Abolition of Slavery Act, abolishes throughout the British Empire with the exception of the East India Company, Ceylon and the island of St Helena
1833 Tolpuddle Martyrs. A group of farm labourers from the village of Tolpuddle, Dorset, formed a friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers following a cut in their wages and the threat of future cuts. In 1834 the local magistracy were alarmed at what seemed more organised unrest and arson in the Southern counties and rioting in urban areas. The magistrates gained the approval of the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne, to arrest the leaders for taking 'Unlawful oaths' under a little used statute of 1797. They were given the maximum sentence of seven years transportation. Protest meetings were held up and down the country and 25,000 marched in London
1834 The Poor Law Amendment Act reduced the relief given to poor people
1836 a new Home Secretary, Lord John Russell, gave the Dorset Labourers, Tolpuddle Martyrs, a free pardon to return from Australia.
1837 Punishment of Offences act reduces the sentence of death for riot to transportation.
1838 The London Working Men's Association published the 'People's Charter'
1838 Militia drafted in to defend Carmarthen Workhouse
1839 Chartist Rising, Newport
1840 "What is Property?" published by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In this book Proudhon declared 'property is theft'
1839 - 1843 Rebecca Riots, South Wales (west first and spreading east)
1842 Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners Association formed (85 companies, over 200 mines presented a united front against the miners)
1842 second Chartist Petition
1843 Exceptions of the Slavery Act removed
1847 Brad y llyfrau gleision (The treachery of the blue books)
1847 Chartist, Feargus O'Connor elected to Parliament
1848 third Chartist Petition
1848 Publication of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels
1856 Troops sent to Talargoch, Flintshire during a lead miners strike
1857 Troops sent to Aberdare to suppress a miners strike
1864 First International Workingmen's Association (First International) was held at St Martin's Hall, London
1864 The Aberdare Steam Coal Collieries Association founded, later to become the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners Association in 1870. These was created to oppose the organisation of the workers, set wages, prices and to maximise profits.
1867 Royal Commission on Trades Unions agreed that the establishment of Trade Unions was to the advantage of both the employers and employees
1867 Parliamentary Reform Act. A great let down for working people demanding representation.
1868 penal transportation finally ended
1869 The Mold riots. Miners went on strike after first being banned from speaking Welsh underground by the pit manager and ten having their wages cut. Striking miners assaulted the manager and frogmarched him to the police station. The ringleaders were arrested and tried. A large crowd gathered and as John Jones and Ismael Jones were lead to the station to begin their sentence of one month hard labour the crowd began throwing stones. Troops from the 4th Regiment of the King Own from Chester fired into the crowd indiscriminately shooting two women and injuring many more people. The Riot Act had not been read.
1871 Trades Unions finally legalised
1871 Paris Commune following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War.
1872 Ballot Act
1880s tithe riots in Derbyshire
1883 The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act reduced the expenditure any candidate could spend on an election campaign amongst other reforms.
1884 Parliamentary Reform Acted created an uniform franchise in both country ad borough and applied to the UK as a whole. However, plural voting was still permitted.
1885 Redistribution of Seats gaving growing towns the right to send more MPs to Parliament
1889 Founding of the Miners Federation of Great Britain at Newport
1896 11 month lock-out over pay dispute in Penrhyn quarries
1897 Founding of the National Union of Women's Suffrage
1898 6 month lock-out in the coalfields of South Wales
1898 Lais Llafur created in Ystalyfera
1899 South Wales Miners' Federation "the Fed" founded
1900 Taff Vale Railway strike
1900 - 1903 The Penrhyn Quarry Great Strike
1903 Women's Social and Political Union founded by Emmeline Pankhurst
1906 Trade Disputes Act; no course of action could be brought against a trade union for economic loss if a strike was in 'contemplation of furtherance of a trade dispute'
1910 Tonypandy Mineworkers Strike ignites the Great Unrest. Churchill sends in the cavalry and later the infantry. One man dies.
1910 - 1914 the Great Unrest and then the Great War, great. Are these connected in some way?
1911 National Railway Strike
1911 Llanelli Riots, two men killed by the army
1911 Parliament Act reduced the power of the House of Lords and replaced their veto with the ability to only delay bill from the House of Commons
1912 Rioting in Swansea
1913 marked a new stage in the women's suffrage campaign. Mrs Pankhurst threatened in a speech in Cardiff that the WSPU was now prepared to attack the things most valued by contemporary society - 'money, property and pleasure'. 'Militancy was right Mrs Pankhurst concluded because 'No measure worth having has been won in any other way.'
1914 August Britain declares War on Germany
1914 December an unofficial truce broke out between soldiers. It began with carol singing and then unarmed German soldiers began to approach the Allies trenches shouting 'Merry Christmas' in the language of the opposing army. It never happened again as the officers were given instructions to prevent such outbreaks of humanity.
1915 Strike in the South Wales coalfields
1917 Russian Revolution
1918 First World War ended, not least because of a mutiny by German naval ratings who could see that the war was over and future sacrifice was unnecessary. The mutiny spread amongst onshore workers in Kiel and soon the entire country was affected, on November 7th Ludwig 3rd of Bavaria fled to Austria. Germany was declared a republic on November 9th and shortly after Kaiser Wilhelm 2nd (the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria) abdicated.
1918 Representation of the People Act gave the vote to all men of, or over, the age of 21and women of, or over, the age of 30
1919 Mutiny on HMS Kilbride at Milford Haven over delays in demobilisation. There were five mutinies in Britain during this period. Five Canadian soldiers died in a mutiny at Kinmel Camp, Rhyl
1919 Race riots in Cardiff.
1925 Riot in Ammanford during a strike by coalminers
1926 General Strike
1928 Women given the franchise on the same terms as men
1931 Riot at Maerdy
1933 Riot at Bedwas
1934 250 miners sacked in Bedlinog for being members of the Fed. Replaced by scab workers leading to protests and unrest throughout the area
1935 A reduction in unemployment benefit led to mass protests: in Blaina, Gwent, ten people jailed; Taff Merthyr, Bedlinog, 32 were imprisoned in the largest mass trial in British history and 12 people were acquitted of singing anti-royalist songs in Abertillery
1936 Anti-fascist demonstrations against Moseley in Tonypandy
1938 Publication of "Anarcho-Syndicalism" Rudolf Rocker
... to be continued
The list clearly begins to peter out at the beginning of the twentieth century and ends before we get half way through the last century. The reason for this is simple, I originally wanted to create a context for the events in the life of the 3rd Marquess of Bute and the things that he might have seen in his tarot readings. I do not mean to suggest that the struggle for democracy, human rights and a humane way of living has been achieved. I'm sure that the list will be extended over time.
Below is an extract from The Country and the City by Raymond Williams. Here he writes about the polarity and also the commonalities of these locations in relation to English literature and so the references are to England. I ask you to excuse me the infelicity of quoting him here in relation to Wales, however, I think the points he makes are relevant to the argument developed in this blog:
looking back at the real rural England of the early nineteenth century, it is easy to see an old way of life overshadowed by the tumultuous development of the new industrial system. The decisive forces, in the in the national economy, were the general industrial and financial development and the crises of trade. Rural England, in some ways, was the place where the final shocks were taken, the final costs paid.But this was not because agriculture, as an isolable activity, was declining. As late as the 1830s with the national population rapidly expanding, well over ninety percent of the for grain was met from home growing, and food production in general continued the long upward rise from the eighteenth-century improvements. Yet what happened in the villages to the labourers and the poor was, after 1815, as bad as anything in the long centuries of exploitation and degradation. To most contemporary observers it seemed worse than anything they had known.
The fundamental causes of this apparent paradox are indeed very difficult to decide. Basically, the poverty and suffering which reached a critical level after 1815 were the consequence of the establishment of a capitalist order in farming: that long transformation which was already decisively established by the mid-eighteenth century.
(Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City 1973. (this edition) Spokesman, Nottingham 2011. p. 182)
1. This blog arose as a guided tour of Cardiff. It is easy to see the historic buildings and city environment as somehow calm and untroubled. It is clear that the wealth that built many of the still visible monuments was achieved at great human cost and misery even though the struggles prompted by this misery and the wealth generated brought about many improvements in everyone's lives. I want to create a context for the people mentioned in the main body of the blog.
2. This context is important because historic buildings can often be seen as separate to the continuing narratives of history as if they have played their part and are now mere observers. It was interesting to see Cardiff Castle surrounded by the 'Freedom Fence' erected for the NATO conference that was being held in Newport, nearly twenty miles away. The site which has been a fortress for every invader and coloniser in Wales had become a redoubt for NATO in the 21st Century.
2. The rapid urbanisation that happened in Britain began in the countryside with the enclosure of common land and the rapid development of agriculture. This brought social upheaval and organised resistance. The organised resistance of rural labourers spread into the industrial centres as many of these people were displaced from the land. Life in the countryside and the city is not a polarity it is a continuum.
1715 The Riot Act was introduced as a measure to tackle unrest after a series of riots against the Whig Parliament. Anglican rioters attacked dissenters and the religious houses of dissenters. The Riot Act allowed local authorities to declare any group of more than 12 people unlawful and and thus disperse or face punitive action. The act had to be read out loud to the mob before any action could be taken to quell the crowd.
1740 Armed miners riot in Rhuddlan over low wages
1747 Birth of Edward Williams, Iolo Morgannwg: poet, 'The Bard of Liberty', antiquarian and revolutionary
1758 Cilgwyn quarrymen marched to Caernarfon to seize corn. Two die when soldiers are called in
1758 - 1783 American Revolutionary War
1789 - 1799 French Revolution
1792 Iolo Morgannwg convened the first meeting of the Gorsedd of the Island of Great Britain on Primrose Hill
1793 - 1801 Food riots throughout rural Wales
1797 the failed invasion of French soldiers at Goodwick leads to a crackdown on radicals
1880 Birth of Dr WIlliam Price: Chartist, opponent of marriage, vegetarian and radical. He fled Britain due to the government crackdown that followed the Chartist Uprising. In Paris he met Proudhon, who he considered half-hearted as he only wanted freedom for men and not women as well.
1811 - 1817 Luddites
1816 Unrest in Tredegar and Merthyr Tydfil.
1816 Troops fired warning shots in Aberystwyth during protests against enclosures
1817 Pentrich rising in Derbyshire
1818 Troops used against a crowd in Carmarthen trying to stop the export of food when people were starving in the county
1819 Protests at Abermiwl
1819 Peterloo Massacre (when militia stormed a peaceful husting in Manchester)
1820s Scotch Cattle, Monmouthshire
1822 Army open fire in Gwent during miners strike led by the Scotch Cattle
1830 Swing Riots, Kent. These against the mechanisation of farming in the South East of England and were countered by empowering magistrates to sentence rioters to transportation rather than death and to avoid using the army to suppress unrest as demanded by Tories.
1830 Battle of Chirk Bridge. Denbighshire Hussar Yeomanry called out to prevent a march by miners from Ruabon linking up with miners from Shropshire. They were protesting against the 'Truck System'; a system by which workers were paid in tokens to be redeemed for goods at shops owned by their employers.
1831 Riots in Mold and Carmarthen
1831 Merthyr Rising following the lowering of wages by William Crawshay
1831 August 13th Dic Penderyn hanged in Cardiff allegedly for stabbing a soldier. Lewis Lewis arrested at the same time transported for life.
1832 Great Reform Act
1832 -34 The Scotch Cattle protests reach their peak. In 1834 Edward Morgan was hanged in Monmouth Prison for a murder he didn't commit during an action against a miner who was breaking the strike. The Scotch Cattle were not defeated, they joined the Chartists
1833 Abolition of Slavery Act, abolishes throughout the British Empire with the exception of the East India Company, Ceylon and the island of St Helena
1833 Tolpuddle Martyrs. A group of farm labourers from the village of Tolpuddle, Dorset, formed a friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers following a cut in their wages and the threat of future cuts. In 1834 the local magistracy were alarmed at what seemed more organised unrest and arson in the Southern counties and rioting in urban areas. The magistrates gained the approval of the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne, to arrest the leaders for taking 'Unlawful oaths' under a little used statute of 1797. They were given the maximum sentence of seven years transportation. Protest meetings were held up and down the country and 25,000 marched in London
1834 The Poor Law Amendment Act reduced the relief given to poor people
1836 a new Home Secretary, Lord John Russell, gave the Dorset Labourers, Tolpuddle Martyrs, a free pardon to return from Australia.
1837 Punishment of Offences act reduces the sentence of death for riot to transportation.
1838 The London Working Men's Association published the 'People's Charter'
1838 Militia drafted in to defend Carmarthen Workhouse
1839 Chartist Rising, Newport
1840 "What is Property?" published by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In this book Proudhon declared 'property is theft'
1839 - 1843 Rebecca Riots, South Wales (west first and spreading east)
1842 Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners Association formed (85 companies, over 200 mines presented a united front against the miners)
1842 second Chartist Petition
1843 Exceptions of the Slavery Act removed
1847 Brad y llyfrau gleision (The treachery of the blue books)
1847 Chartist, Feargus O'Connor elected to Parliament
1848 third Chartist Petition
1848 Publication of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels
1856 Troops sent to Talargoch, Flintshire during a lead miners strike
1857 Troops sent to Aberdare to suppress a miners strike
1864 First International Workingmen's Association (First International) was held at St Martin's Hall, London
1864 The Aberdare Steam Coal Collieries Association founded, later to become the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners Association in 1870. These was created to oppose the organisation of the workers, set wages, prices and to maximise profits.
1867 Royal Commission on Trades Unions agreed that the establishment of Trade Unions was to the advantage of both the employers and employees
1867 Parliamentary Reform Act. A great let down for working people demanding representation.
1868 penal transportation finally ended
1869 The Mold riots. Miners went on strike after first being banned from speaking Welsh underground by the pit manager and ten having their wages cut. Striking miners assaulted the manager and frogmarched him to the police station. The ringleaders were arrested and tried. A large crowd gathered and as John Jones and Ismael Jones were lead to the station to begin their sentence of one month hard labour the crowd began throwing stones. Troops from the 4th Regiment of the King Own from Chester fired into the crowd indiscriminately shooting two women and injuring many more people. The Riot Act had not been read.
1871 Trades Unions finally legalised
1871 Paris Commune following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War.
1872 Ballot Act
1880s tithe riots in Derbyshire
1883 The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act reduced the expenditure any candidate could spend on an election campaign amongst other reforms.
1884 Parliamentary Reform Acted created an uniform franchise in both country ad borough and applied to the UK as a whole. However, plural voting was still permitted.
1885 Redistribution of Seats gaving growing towns the right to send more MPs to Parliament
1889 Founding of the Miners Federation of Great Britain at Newport
1896 11 month lock-out over pay dispute in Penrhyn quarries
1897 Founding of the National Union of Women's Suffrage
1898 6 month lock-out in the coalfields of South Wales
1898 Lais Llafur created in Ystalyfera
1899 South Wales Miners' Federation "the Fed" founded
1900 Taff Vale Railway strike
1900 - 1903 The Penrhyn Quarry Great Strike
1903 Women's Social and Political Union founded by Emmeline Pankhurst
1906 Trade Disputes Act; no course of action could be brought against a trade union for economic loss if a strike was in 'contemplation of furtherance of a trade dispute'
1910 Tonypandy Mineworkers Strike ignites the Great Unrest. Churchill sends in the cavalry and later the infantry. One man dies.
1910 - 1914 the Great Unrest and then the Great War, great. Are these connected in some way?
1911 National Railway Strike
1911 Llanelli Riots, two men killed by the army
1911 Parliament Act reduced the power of the House of Lords and replaced their veto with the ability to only delay bill from the House of Commons
1912 Rioting in Swansea
1913 marked a new stage in the women's suffrage campaign. Mrs Pankhurst threatened in a speech in Cardiff that the WSPU was now prepared to attack the things most valued by contemporary society - 'money, property and pleasure'. 'Militancy was right Mrs Pankhurst concluded because 'No measure worth having has been won in any other way.'
1914 August Britain declares War on Germany
1914 December an unofficial truce broke out between soldiers. It began with carol singing and then unarmed German soldiers began to approach the Allies trenches shouting 'Merry Christmas' in the language of the opposing army. It never happened again as the officers were given instructions to prevent such outbreaks of humanity.
1915 Strike in the South Wales coalfields
1917 Russian Revolution
1918 First World War ended, not least because of a mutiny by German naval ratings who could see that the war was over and future sacrifice was unnecessary. The mutiny spread amongst onshore workers in Kiel and soon the entire country was affected, on November 7th Ludwig 3rd of Bavaria fled to Austria. Germany was declared a republic on November 9th and shortly after Kaiser Wilhelm 2nd (the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria) abdicated.
1918 Representation of the People Act gave the vote to all men of, or over, the age of 21and women of, or over, the age of 30
1919 Mutiny on HMS Kilbride at Milford Haven over delays in demobilisation. There were five mutinies in Britain during this period. Five Canadian soldiers died in a mutiny at Kinmel Camp, Rhyl
1919 Race riots in Cardiff.
1925 Riot in Ammanford during a strike by coalminers
1926 General Strike
1928 Women given the franchise on the same terms as men
1931 Riot at Maerdy
1933 Riot at Bedwas
1934 250 miners sacked in Bedlinog for being members of the Fed. Replaced by scab workers leading to protests and unrest throughout the area
1935 A reduction in unemployment benefit led to mass protests: in Blaina, Gwent, ten people jailed; Taff Merthyr, Bedlinog, 32 were imprisoned in the largest mass trial in British history and 12 people were acquitted of singing anti-royalist songs in Abertillery
1936 Anti-fascist demonstrations against Moseley in Tonypandy
1938 Publication of "Anarcho-Syndicalism" Rudolf Rocker
... to be continued
The list clearly begins to peter out at the beginning of the twentieth century and ends before we get half way through the last century. The reason for this is simple, I originally wanted to create a context for the events in the life of the 3rd Marquess of Bute and the things that he might have seen in his tarot readings. I do not mean to suggest that the struggle for democracy, human rights and a humane way of living has been achieved. I'm sure that the list will be extended over time.
Below is an extract from The Country and the City by Raymond Williams. Here he writes about the polarity and also the commonalities of these locations in relation to English literature and so the references are to England. I ask you to excuse me the infelicity of quoting him here in relation to Wales, however, I think the points he makes are relevant to the argument developed in this blog:
looking back at the real rural England of the early nineteenth century, it is easy to see an old way of life overshadowed by the tumultuous development of the new industrial system. The decisive forces, in the in the national economy, were the general industrial and financial development and the crises of trade. Rural England, in some ways, was the place where the final shocks were taken, the final costs paid.But this was not because agriculture, as an isolable activity, was declining. As late as the 1830s with the national population rapidly expanding, well over ninety percent of the for grain was met from home growing, and food production in general continued the long upward rise from the eighteenth-century improvements. Yet what happened in the villages to the labourers and the poor was, after 1815, as bad as anything in the long centuries of exploitation and degradation. To most contemporary observers it seemed worse than anything they had known.
The fundamental causes of this apparent paradox are indeed very difficult to decide. Basically, the poverty and suffering which reached a critical level after 1815 were the consequence of the establishment of a capitalist order in farming: that long transformation which was already decisively established by the mid-eighteenth century.
(Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City 1973. (this edition) Spokesman, Nottingham 2011. p. 182)
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