The Last Rising: The Newport Chartist Insurrection of 1839 (Paperback)

The Chartist movement is a core area of study in many history syllabuses. This new edition of a book first published in 1999, details the last of the Chartist insurrections in 1839. It looks at the full story of the rising, its origins and its aftermath, and analyzes 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 text reveals that several revolutionary schemes were considered in the valleys, and establishes links with militants in other parts of Britain. It 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. The author concludes that contemporaries were right to regard the rising as one of the most important turning points in Welsh and British social history.