South Wales and the Rising of 1839 Class Struggle as Armed Struggle Routledge Library Editions: The Victorian World Series

First published in 1984, this book provides the first full study of the carefully planned rising of south Wales miners and ironworkers in 1839 and of its collapse at the confrontation with soldiers of the 45th regiment of Newport. It examines not only the rising itself, but the factors that made it, if not inevitable, then likely. It argues that while the workers? movement was an immediate response to the grim circumstances of the workplace, it was also deeply rooted in the centuries-old Welsh experience of repression.

This title will be of particular interest to students of Victorian political and social history and well as the history of Wales.

List of Maps, Figures and Tables; Preface; Part 1: Prologue; 1. Wales: the Industrial Nation2. The South Wales Rising Through the Eyes of the Press; Part 2: Classes in Conflict; 3. Landowners, Capitalists and the Growth of Industry 4. The Working-class Community: Wages, Prices and Households 5. Strikes, Combinations and the Class Struggle 6. Works, Workers and the Working Men’s Associations; Part 3: The ‘Disturbed Districts’; 7. The Army of the Classes 8. The Revolutionary Design: a Workers’ Republic 9. The English Connection and the Agony of Frost 10. The ‘Rise’: the March on Newport 11. All the Queen’s Men: Soldiers, Magistrates and Politicians; Part 4: Considerations; 12 The Peculiarities of Wales 13. The Rising Reviewed; Appendix I: The Rebel Dead; Appendix II: Committals and Trials; Index