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Wales - History Review I: 1847-1945

pre-1847:Merthyr Rising of 1831 violent climax to many years of unrest among the large working class population of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales and the surrounding area
May 1831 > the coal miners and others who worked for William Crawshay took to the streets of Merthyr Tydfil, calling for reform, protesting against the lowering of their wages andgeneral unemployment (protest spread to nearby industrial towns > by the end of May the whole area was in rebellion)
sense of protest spread and due to this the British government in London had ordered in the army to Merthyr Tydfil to restore order --> Since the crowd was now too large to be dispersed, the soldiers were ordered to protect essential buildings and people
riots reachedtheir peak and panic had spread to the family orientated and peaceful town folk, who had now started to flee
rioters arranging a mass meeting for Sunday 6th > when 450 troops marched to the mass meeting at Waun above Dowlais with levelled weapons, the mass-meeting dispersed and the riots were effectively over

The Rebecca Riots The Rebecca Riots took place between 1839 and 1843 in Southand Mid Wales
a series of protests against conditions in the rural areas of Wales > unfair taxation
The rioters, often men dressed as women, took their actions against toll-gates (Gebührenstellen) and general economic conditions in the countryside and the relationship between farmers and landlords, and the church.
Most farmers did not own their own land (as they generally do now)but paid rent to wealthy landlords (known as gentry) for the use of their farms. Rents were quite high - and out of proportion to what farmers could earn from their produce

Newport Rising

Industrialisation in 19th century WalesWith a smaller middle class than its equally industrialised neighbours, England and Scotland, at the beginning of the 20th century Wales could convincingly bedescribed as the world's first proletarian nation.
By 1900 Wales had a long tradition of working-class protest. There was serious unrest in Tredegar in 1816 and, in the 1820s, the Scotch Cattle, a group seeking to create working-class unity through terror, were active in Monmouthshire.
Much of the protest was aimed at the untrammelled power of the ironmasters who, in addition to being employers werealso landlords, owners of truck shops and controllers of such local government as existed. In some cases they were also members of the local magistrates' bench.
In 1831 Merthyr experienced the most serious uprising to occur in 19th-century Britain. The uprising was in part the result of the instability created by agitation for parliamentary reform.
However, its basic causes can be attributed tothe highly distinctive character of the Welsh experience of industrialization; it culminated in the killing of at least 20 people outside Merthyr's Castle Hotel and the hanging of Richard Lewis (Dic Penderyn).
The Chartist uprising of 1839 proved equally bloody. The Chartists, advocates of universal male suffrage, organised a march on Newport which was partly a demonstration and partly an attemptat revolution.
It resulted in at least a score of deaths around the town's Westgate Hotel, and the deportation of its leaders - John Frost, the one-time mayor of Newport - among them.
The growth of trade unionism
The brilliant historian Gwyn Alfred Williams considered that the Merthyr Rising marked the end of the primitive phase in the history of the Welsh working class. Thereafter, theemphasis was upon organisation.
Trade unionism came to Wales in 1830 when Flintshire miners joined the Friendly Associated Coalminers' Union; Merthyr followed in 1831.
Over the following 50 years, unionism had a chequered history. Attempts by Robert Owen of Newtown, the pioneer of co-operation, to establish comprehensive unionism collapsed in 1834. Craft unions came into existence in the 1850s but...