DEMOCRACY DAY PETITION | 10 Downing Street

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to create a new Autumn Bank Holiday to be called "Democracy Day" as we believe that the pioneering sacrifices of those who sowed the seeds of British democracy should be celebrated.

• Sign the DEMOCRACY DAY PETITION
  

• On the Prime Minister's official 10 Downing Street E-Petition website here
  

• http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Democracy-Day/

We advocate an annual Democracy Day public holiday on the Monday nearest to the 4th of November, in commemoration of the Newport Chartist Rising of 4th November 1839 when more than 20 men were killed whilst demanding the right to vote.

Our proposed date recalls three pioneering movements in the development of British democracy:

• The 'Putney Debates' of 28th October to 9th November 1647, when the case for male suffrage was publicly formulated for the first time in British history.

• The demands of the People's Charter of 1838 which have become the foundation of parliamentary democracy in Britain.

• The cause of the Women's Suffrage Movement is remembered with the foundation of the Women's Social and Political Union in October 1903, and the events of Black Friday in November 1910 when suffragettes demonstrating outside Parliament were attacked and arrested by the authorities.

As outlined in the Early Day Motion Number 8 that was laid before Parliament on 6th November 2007, we call for this additional public holiday to remember the courage and vision of past generations and the challenge of building democracy today.

• Sign the DEMOCRACY DAY PETITION

CHARTIST ANCESTORS | Event summary

CHARTIST ANCESTORS

pioneers of democracy

A day event to commemorate the Anniversary of the Newport Chartist Rising of 4 November 1839

Saturday November 3^rd 2007, St. Mary’s Institute, Newport

Summary by Les James, 12 November 2007

The Chartist Ancestors - Pioneers of Democracy event was organised in response to the great interest generated earlier this year by the ‘Meet the Descendants’ event, held at Newport Museum and Art Gallery on April 30^th. Chartist Ancestors provided opportunities for:

• people with Chartist ancestors to share their family stories with the public,

• the story of Chartism and the people of the Chartist era to be understood and appreciated by a wider audience

• and for recognition of the struggle and sacrifice made by past generations for the democratic rights enjoyed today.

Read the full summary here

chartistancestors chartistnewport

VIDEO | A Chartist Tour, 4 Nov 2007

A Chartist Tour | 4 November 2007
On Sunday 4 November 2007 I participated in a guided coach tour of chartist sites across south Wales, in commemoration of the 4 November 1839 Newport Chartist Rising.

The Sunday tour of Chartist sites followed the Chartist Ancestors event of Saturday, and many of the participants attended both days of Chartist Anniversary celebration. The presence of a number of Chartist descendants gave the Sunday tour a special poignancy therefore, as we visited sites such as the Nantyglo Roundtowers - built as a fortification by rutheless iron-master Crawshay Bailey - in the heart of the Hills of Monmouthshire iron district; and, most dramatically, we filled the Court Room of the Shire Hall. Monmouthsire, where the mass treason trial of John Frost and his fellow defendants was held.

Our full days' coach tour tour re-traced sections of the route taken on the Chartists March to Newport; we passed through the landscapes of power of the landowner-capitalists and the Chartists of the industrial frontier; we filled the Court Room of Monmouthsire Shire Hall where the Chartist Trial proceedings took place; and returned to Newport for a commemoration event at St Woolos Cathedral.

The day's journey had transformed the fractured geography and spaces of the everyday into a coherent story and landscape of Chartism, a network of Chartist and anti-Chartist activity, charged with human narrative and historical detail to produce unique insights into some of the places and individual actors of Chartism.

Read more | Sunday 4 November 2007 Chartist Tour here.

The Trial of John Frost | Terry Frost Jones, descendant of Newport Mayor and Chartist Leader John Frost, outside the Shire Hall, Monmouth, where the Court Room held the trial of John Frost and his fellow Chartist defendants for mass treason.

The Chartist Trial | The popular judgement of history - 4 November 2007 - Chartist descendants stand in the Judge's benches at the Court Room, Shire Hall, Monmouth, to provide a testimony of their ancestor's role in the Newport Chartist Insurrection of 4 November 1839, and celebrate the ultimate prevailing of the Chartist's cause of Democracy.

Read more | Sunday 4 November 2007 Chartist Tour here.

jw_nov_07 chartisttour chartistnewport

VIDEO | Newport Chartist Mural

31 October 2007 | As the Chartist Anniversay weekend approaches, in commemoration of the Newport Chartist Rising of 4 November 1839, we are pleased to present the first video clip of the Newport Chartist Mural (John Frost Square, Newport):




More | Newport Chartist Mural Documentation Project

Chartist insurrrection at Newport | "We have already mentioned that there was scarcely any town of importance in the manufacturing districts whose tranquility was not compromised by the chartists in the course of the year.

We have, however, now to relate the particulars of an insurrection even more alarming than the Birmingham outrage, which broke out at Newport in Monmouthshire at the close of 1839.

This town is the capital of a tract of country called the Hill district, which forms a sort of triangle, the apex of which may be placed at Risca, five miles from Newport, the base at about a distance of fifteen or twenty miles.

The whole region is intersected by glens watered by streams, and maintains a mining population of nearly forty thousand persons in regions which fifty years ago exhibited nothing but the scattered dwellings of a few shepherds".

| The Annual Register, Or, A View of the History and Politics of the Year 1839 [ Published 1840 J.G. & F. Rivington. Available as a public domain book in Google Books ]

Newport Chartist Mural ( Video v1.0 )

Newport Chartist Mural Documentation Project

23 October 2007 | Today we recorded the Newport Chartist Mural in situ in the pedestrian tunnel, John Frost Square, Newport.

We were blessed with an exceptionally sunny day, enhancing the normally poor lighting conditions in the tunnel in order to record the 120 ft long mosaic mural.

We are grateful for the patience shown by members of the public during our filming in the tunnel, many of whom expressed their enthusiastic views on the Chartist Mural.

We look forward to making the Newport Chartist Mural photographic and film archive available online over the coming weeks.

Mapping Chartist Newport

Chartist landmarks

Mapping Chartist Newport

Some selected Chartist landmarks - highlighting the geography of Chartism in Newport, the industrial valleys and iron-districts of Monmouthsire and the "Hills", plus some wider South Wales connections. [Work in progress]

[1] A geography of Chartism: From Westgate Square to the Chartist Caves

v_0.1 | 10 Oct 2007

Visualization:

• chartistprism
• flickr map
• postcard
  
• desktop
• tags
  

[2] The signs on the street: Chartist prism

Defamiliarizing the landmark

• chartistprism

Walking the street - we tend to pass by everyday familiar landmarks; despite their size they dissolve from our very sight. Public statues and other forms of public art are no exception - the noble becomes a traffic island, we do not enquire into his past deeds.

Chartism - the signs on the street of a memorialized past - in public statues, memorials, plaques and other forms of public art. The signs on the street. Fragmented signs and space; or, heroic narrative and place of Chartism? Sites of memory and forgetting, sedition and freedom, power and struggle.

Chartist Anniversary Events

Announcing two forthcoming Chartist Anniversary events in commemoration of the Newport Chartist Rising of 4 November 1839 :

CHARTIST TOUR | Anniversary of the Newport Chartist Rising, 1839

Sunday 4 November 2007 | A guided coach tour around Chartism sites across South East Wales | Organised by HERIAN – Heritage in Action | Itinerary and booking information here

CHARTIST ANCESTORS | Pioneers of democracy

Saturday 3 November 2007 | St. Mary’s Institute, Stow Hill, Newport | | A day event to commemorate the Anniversary of the Newport Chartist Rising of 4 November 1839 | 11 am - 5 pm, Free Entrance | Programme details here