MERTHYR RIOTS 1801 and the EXECUTION OF SAMUEL HILL and AARON WILLIAMS

Part I: The Background.

I HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE FED.

In our present times when  on the one hand society is bombarded with how obese people are getting from over eating and Super Markets Car Parks are almost every day packed to capacity and trolleys full to the brim with not so goodies. But on the other hand there is the contradiction of many people who have to visit food banks as often as not supplied by left over out of date hand outs by Super Market or voluntary by their customers after checking out of course. Now the issue as arisen how can  people particularly the old afford over the coming Winter Months to eat or heat their homes with rising electricity and Gas prices due a great deal to ‘Green Subsidies’ to fund Windmills which few in Wales wish to see blight our landscape. Whatever, the truth is we in Wales will never see the hunger that the present day third world suffers nor are we likely to see again the ‘Hunger Marches’ of our Miners to protest and sing on the streets of London nor see repeated the impoverished Valleys welcoming food parcels from better off towns of the English South East.

We shall certainly not revisit a Wales that knew of a great hunger that prompted the Corn Riots of the latter part of the 18^th Century and the one of 1801 of most tragic consequence for two Miners who became so involved, to be imprisoned and charged with High Way Robbery and then executed at Gallows Field in Cardiff (exact location still under research, as it may not be same as the known site today). At his trial Coal Miner Samuel Hill said in justifying his action ‘’I have the right to be fed’’, later on the gallows Aaron Williams, during the course of the preachers prayers, said as his last observation to his comrade Samuel Hill “that they were going to suffer for hundreds,” Samuel Hill replied, “yes, for thousands, but I never knew so happy a day as this in the course of my life.”  I can think that this as just another good reason we fight for a Free Socialist Wales in which there is fair play for all and no intolerant injustice which seeks to make victims of the poor and less fortunate. Socialists remember these two Working class Martyrs and commemorate their executions.

We all need to walk in the shoes of Samuel Hill and Aaron Williams who are just two of many such Working Class Heroes and Martyrs in Wales who in the century following 1801 will fight against Tyranny and Oppression. Below is some further information on these two all but forgotten Martyrs Samuel Hill and Aaron Williams who have no memorial or plaque to record their fight and the right to be fed. Nor are annual commemorations held to mark their struggle in Merthyr Tudful  and eventual execution in Cardiff. Perhaps Socialists might do something about this failiure to remember and pay tribute.

PART 2: Further Information Sources.

For further information on the revolt of 1801 and execution of Samuel Hill and Arron Williams see a number of history journals and books on the Corn Riots in Wales.

            The Corn Riots in Wales, 1793-1801        

            Welsh History Review        Vol. 2, nos. 1-4 1964-65                     

We also need to get into the Court Records for more details. The Riots of 1801 much based on Merthyr and I believe same in 1816 and 1822 all very much prologue to 1831?

(Newspapers and periodicals)

The execution of two rioters by Anonymous.

Location: Marion Löffler, Welsh Responses to the French Revolution: Press and Public Discourse (2012), doc 3.21

On Friday night were executed on Cardiff Heath, pursuant to their sentence, Samuel Hill and Aaron Williams, two of the Merthyr rioters, who had been capitally convicted at the late Great Sessions of the County of Glamorgan. – They both behaved with the greatest penitence, and seemed fully confident, through the merits of their Redeemer, of having had pardon and forgiveness. – Aaron Williams, during the course of his prayers, before they were turned off, observed “that they were going to suffer for hundreds,” Samuel Hill replied, “yes, for thousands, but I never knew so happy a day as this in the course of my life.”

Shrewsbury Chronicle, 29 May 1801.

THE RIGHT TO BE FED 

113 At his trial, Samuel Hill. one of the Merthyr rioters, justified his action on the grounds that ''he had a right to be fed''.  See Records - N.L.W.. Tredegar Park Muniments. Box 64/356 .  What did they do? 130 At Merthyr Tydfil two of the rioters, Aaron Williams and Samuel Hill, were hanged, and a young man of 18 years sentenced to transportation for life.131

 PART 3: THE EXECUTION SITE. Info below from Cardiff History Web Site.

THE HEATH WAS ENCLOSED 1801/2 Cardiff Prison rebuilt 1831/32 time for to be hanged outside Market.

The junction at the top of City Road where it meets Richmond Road, Crwys Road, Albany Road and Mackintosh Place is a busy place today. Thousands of cars and buses pass through each day and many pedestrians make their way across the bustling crossroads. As they queue to use the cash machines, I wonder how many people notice a plaque on the wall of the bank which commemorates the deaths, in 1679, of two priests, John Lloyd and Philip Evans.

Long ago the junction was known as Gallows Field and it was to this place that prisoners who had been condemned to death were brought to be hanged. The gibbet was situated in a field called “The Cut-throats”. This, the Gallows field, was divided into plots which were called Cae budr (the defiled field), Plwcca halog (the unhallowed plot) and Pwll halog (the unhallowed pool), commemorating the grim associations of the site.

They were brought from the County Gaol in High Street, where the Central Market is now situated. They approached the place of execution along Plwcca Lane, now City Road. The top portion of Richmond Road divides the Gallows Field in two today.

Also See:

 City Road is a run-down inner-Cardiff city thoroughfare. It's thick with car showrooms, Asian restaurants, Spar 24-hour groceries and boarded, abandoned shops. It runs from the student land of Cathays, through the five-way death junction of City, Albany, Richmond, Crwys and Macintosh, to the closed and decaying Royal Infirmary on Newport Road. It's a street everyone knows but hardly anyone loves. Up until the middle of last century it was known as Heol-y-Plwcca after the gallows field at its northern end. Here, in a plot known as 'the Cut Throats', more or less where the Road has its junction with Albany, stood the town gibbet. Nearby were plots called Cae Budr (the defiled field), Plwcca Halog (the unhallowed plot), and Pwll Halog (the unhallowed pool). Today they've got side streets built across them and are happily called Strathnairn, Glenroy and Keppoch. The grimness has been vanquished, buried under backgarden clay and foundation, forgotten. There's a bakers, a Lebanese fast-food and an army surplus store selling Italian combat jackets, imitation pistols, folding shovels and camouflage water bottles. For a brief time City Road was called Castle Road, after Roath Castle, the former great house which now runs bowls, drinking, the Night-Writers creative writing group and tennis as The Mackintosh Institute. But since Cardiff had a bigger and more important Castle elsewhere names had to change.

SCROLL ON

Saturday, 30 January 2010

Death Junction

 Any self-respecting story blog should include a little bit of history, so here's an interesting fact about the point where Crwys Road, Mackintosh Place, Albany Road, City Road and Richmond Road converge, a spot known locally as 'Death Junction' (see below for a photo). I always thought the junction got its morbid nickname from the chaotic traffic (anyone who's driven there will know it can get a bit dodgy, especially at rush hour), but a small plaque I noticed on the wall of the NatWest revealed something a lot more intriguing:

After a bit of Googling, I discovered that the junction is in fact the site of the old Gallows Field, where countless criminals (and, apparently, innocents) were hung. The men mentioned on the plaque were priests hung for practising Catholicism, which was outlawed at the time.

This little find just goes to show that there's a lot more to Cardiff than meets the eye, and there's a vast, exciting and sometimes bloody history waiting to be uncovered - all you have to do is look for it.

Posted by tom at 1:16 pm  

Further to be posted in Due Course Part 4 The Trial, Judges Summing Up and the Bloody Code background and reasons for harshness of Sentencing. Am also working on an account of the Merthyr Risings of 1816 and the South Wales Revolt of 1822. That will keep me busy and out of harms way for a while, I dare say.

Of Additional and Associated Interest regards Peoples Struggles:

WAUN DDYFAL - Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr - Blogger

greatunrest2012.blogspot.com/.../waun-ddyfal-battle-of-mynydd-bach-1...‎

• Cached

14 Nov 2013 - WAUN DDYFAL - The Battle of Mynydd Bach 1799 by Gethin Gruffydd ... and Pike Blog in due course as well as in Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr Blog.

G.Gruffydd

Cymdeithas Lewsyn yr Heliwr, Partisan Cymru and

 Great Unrest Group - History Commission.

Stop Press:

1831 Commemoration 2014

Saturday 31 May - Sunday 1 June.

http://partisan2011.blogspot.co.uk/2013_12_01_archive.html

http://redremembrancer.blogspot.co.uk/2007_04_29_archive.html

 

THE SWORD, THE PITCHFORK AND PIKE. Peoples Struggle in Welsh History.

The Sword, Pitchfork and Pike.

Towards a Peoples Socialist History of Wales.

Introduction

Land and Liberty Struggle.

Prior to the Owain Glyndwr led war of Welsh Independence 1400 – 1416 – 1421 Welsh Land was owned by Native and Anglo – Norman Lords. The 1282 Conquest of Wales an subsequent Colonial Settlement that established a new Colonial and Collaborationist Order much of Welsh Land was made over to the English Conquistadores and the new Borough Towns that were associated with English Castle rule. In some areas as in Y Berfeddwlad (Denbighshire) and on Ynys Mon there was large scale ethnic removals of the Native Welsh as had occurred in earlier times in South Penfro by the Normans who had brought in and resettled Flemish Settlers. However, a broader and larger Colonial settlement would not occur due to fact that the English were recovering land from the Sea on their long East Coast and maybe English population had taken a dip. Further has much of the newly conquered land of North West and along the West Coast was not exactly that profitable to English Lords the local petty Welsh Chiefs were allowed to retain as long as they paid their taxes and made themselves willing servants of English Rule and the new Colonial Collaborationist Order and thus for the coming 100 years plus Wales was to be, I guess much same as ‘Vichy France’ during WWII.

This does not mean that Wales was totally won over as by 1294 the was the so called Madog Revolt which proved not only were there still some former Welsh Nobility and lesser Chiefs peeved with the ‘New Order’ but so too were many Free Tribes Men as well as their Bond population now being made to worker harder for less to help their native rulers pay their taxes. In a native economy that was not used to ‘Money’ the collection of taxes often unpaid often meant the Tax Collectors turning up with a body of troops to collect what was deemed as being owed in kind. This meant basically taking the food out of ones mouth as Cattle, Pigs and Chickens were taken but if this was not enough to provoke a Welsh Bad Temper then the imposition of English Laws and then Conscription to fight in England’s Royal Wars altogether was to create the tension and the circumstances that would give rise to the first Welsh National Revolt that may be seen as also the first popular War of National Liberation in Wales giving a fore taste of what was to come with The ‘Glyndwr War’ over a century later. Tax collection in hard times as in 1315 – 16 with the Llywelyn Bren rebellion* and 1344 – 45 troubles in Northern Wales would also lead to a rise in the banditry of they who became known as ‘Adar y Greim’ (the Birds of Crime), Outlaws who made the vast forests of Wales their abode during the 14^th Century.

* Interestingly, the conclusion of the Llywelyn Bren rebellion brought about much ‘theiving’ and along with it a rise in executions and in Cardiff so much so the authorities bought in a good quantity of cheap rope for the hanging of thieves and this becme known as the ‘Penny Rope’ and by the way each execution cost but 4pence.

This English rule with it’s oppression and tyranny over these  years promoted a growing discontent which with a ‘folk memory’ of traditonal ledgend and myth helped greatly to create a national identity of an ‘oppressed people’ waiting for a day of deliverance. Their deliverer ‘Mab Darogan’ was to be Owain Glyndwr and a number of Native Welsh Lords and landed Gentry who on 16 Medi 1400 had decided they too had a guts full of English Rule and declared for a War of Independence. However, to fight such a war an army was needed and in a land of about just 550.000 population where many of it’s old Noble and Gentry class had sold out and made themselves comfortable as Collaborators this could prove the undoing of the war that was about to be but for one factor and that was over the 100 years previous the coming into existence of a Colonial Underclass of impoverished native Freemen and Welsh Bond families and Anglo – Norman Serfs as well as those who had risen to be made Tenants of the Anglo – Norman Lords of the Land. This increasing ‘Colonial Underclass’ which included those with description as being ‘Workers’ such as Ieuan ap Bleddyn of Ruthin who joined Glyndwr’s first great raid of 18 – 24 September were to become the Foot soldiers of the War for most part quite a large Peasant Army with out which the War would not have been sustained for as long as it was. No doubt trained by Welsh Mercenaries returning from foreign wars on how to be an effective Infantry and by ‘Adar y Greim’ in the ways of Guerrilla Warfare.

The ‘Glyndwr War’ was thus as much possibly to some great extent a ‘Peasants War’, take for example Lord Grey he had 184 serfs  at start of the War but only 8 in latter years of the war post 1416. Now multiply that across the land regards the enslaved Under Class fleeing the land to join the war, in a Peasants Army. I cannot see how else Glyndwr could have possibly risen such as the great army to take on a mighty English Military Machine, books there are aplenty about the Glyndwr ‘War of Independence’, suffice I say that we may also regard it as a War of National Liberation much a popular peasants uprising and the shape of much to come from a people who had learnt to fight back even if only armed with a Pitchfork or Pike. At eventual conclusion of this war, for the ‘Colonial Underclass’ there was no returning for most to normality as many would still have a rebels price on their head as Robat ap Doe brought in as a ‘Rebel’ to Welshpool Castle in 1421 and there hung as many must have been unless once again taking to the woods to become Outlaw Rebels of ‘Y Gwerin Owain’ who would as ‘Banditti Cambria’ continue a Welsh Rebel Resistance up to Tudor Times until following the last Welsh Nobles Revolt of 1529 and prior to the 1536 Act of Union, the Tudors sent into Wales the ‘Hanging Judge’ Rowland Lee to pacify the land as as the Tudors were to cull Welsh Ponies so to the last remaining ‘Outlaw Rebels’ were to be culled too.

However, many of Glyndwr’s ‘Peasant Army’ and their familes would escape ‘English Injustice’ and avoid further oppression and tyranny by escaping to the margins of the uplands and lesser desirable Common Land. In these margins of uplands and hidden valleys they would set up their Tai-nnos and become a relativly ‘Free People’ as example of those who became known as the Red Bandits of Dinas Mawddwy. For much of the 16^th Century many of these People’ were left to get on with it, their land unwanted as the Gentry had better choice pickings in ripping up of the rewards of the Reformation and Robbing blind the riches of the Medieval Religious Orders whom should be regarded as no more than a form of Corperate Capitalism. These Monastic Orders that came on the heels of the Normans were as huge Capitalist Corporations today, not undr any religious obligations to stop them stealing native 'Llan Land' and essentially for some three hundred years went about our country plundering it's natural wealth and agricultural produce. Over time the occupation of the margins become more opportune for those who would become Workers in lead mines of Ceredigion and in small slate Quarries as ‘Vagabond Quarrymen’ in Gwynedd or Lime stone Quarrymen in the South to supply Lime for a growing Iron Industry. In these cases often as not ‘Tai-Unnos’ Townships were established, often allowed and even encouraged as in Gwynedd were the poor were allowed to set up Tai-Unnos and become small holders as thought better than the expense of rate payers having to fund a local Work House.

Thus for a little while, little trouble with each to it’s own the afore described peasantry just about managing whilst the Welsh Gentry got rich on the growing British Empire with a fortune to be made from Tobacco and Sugar along with it slaves. But this would all lead post Tudor Times to the urbanization of Britain and the early development of Industry as Woolen Mills and with it a population boom that required to be fed in a much greater and more efficient manner and to this end arises the Enclosure laws that would greatly increase throughout Britain a landless class of people forced to become ‘wage slaves’ or try and stick it out as best as possible as still a ‘Free Peasantry’ but as often as not only if they took to becoming the ‘People of the Pitchfork’ and resisted the enclosure of their land. Such resistance is in Wales, generally a little known story in public knowledge or imagination unless it is that of the ‘Rebecca Riots’ which as an appeal to the rural religious Small Farmer V Anglicised Gentry Inheritance of our present day ‘Crachach Newydd’ but as far as far as the Resistance of the ‘Underclass’ little is known and something needs to be done about that but what? any ideas that will help towards producing and making better known a Peoples Socialist History of Land and Liberty Struggle let us know, not least if you wish to be involved in the work of The Great Unrest History Commission or more overtly active out and about with Cymdeithas Lewsyn yr Heliwr.

 G.Gruffydd

5 OCTOBER 2013 CHARTIST MURAL PROTEST and Not a Pitchfork and Pike in Sight Other Than On Great Unrest Banners - A ONE DAY RADICAL CALICO MURAL FOTO FEATURE.

CYMRWCH Y TIR YN OL/TAKE BACK THE LAND

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Cached7 days ago - CYMRWCH Y TIR YN OL/TAKE BACK THE LAND.

 Campaigning Against an Old Conquest and a New Conquest of Wales 

by Means of Cheque ...

DRUMMING UP SUPPORT

NEXT ON DISPLAY IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE 2014 MAY/JUNE 1831 

INTERNATIONAL COMMEMORATION AT ABERDARE, HIRWAUN 

and MERTHYR TUDFUL also at LLUEST LEWSYN YR HELIWR AT IMBOLC?

NEWPORT INSURRECTION DAY SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER 2013 DEMONSTRATION AGAINST DESTRUCTION OF THE CHARTIST MURAL - people protest!

1. Save Our Chartist Mural | Facebook

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   To connect with Save Our Chartist Mural, sign up for Facebook today. .... our demo next Saturday 5th October too: http://bit.ly/NewportInsurrection - the more the ...
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   Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr

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   4 days ago - 12pm - Saturday 5th October - John Frost Square - Newport - High NoonInsurrection - to Save Newport Chartist Mural - be there to defend the ...
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   Campaigners to march for Newport Chartist mural (From South ...

   www.southwalesargus.co.uk/.../10701044.Campaigners_to_march_for_...‎
   

   
   

   26 Sep 2013 - ... at noon on October 5, the same weekend as Newport's food festival. The mosaic mural off John Frost Square depicts the Chartist Uprising of ... Peter Rawcliffe, of the Save the Mural campaign, called it an 'insurrection' day.
4. 
   

   Save Newport Mural (SaveOurMural) on Twitter

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   Campaign to save the Newport Chartist Mural,a historic public art piece created by ...HOW ABOUT SOME INSURRECTION SLOGANS FOR OUR DEMO ... Goldie Lookin' Chain are giggin' in Swansea on 5th October - does anyone know them ...
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   Hello @AsaWinstanley There's demo to save Chartist Mural on Sat Oct 5th at 12 in ...Insurrection brewing in Wales over Chartist mural's destruction as Newport ...
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   6 days ago - 5th OCTOBER 2013 HIGH NOON INSURRECTION TO DEFENDNEWPORT CHARTIST MURAL. Also Index of Wales Socialist History Blog ...
7. 
   

   Attempts to save Newport's Chartist mural fail - Worldnews.com

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   18 Sep 2013 - Save Our Newport Chartist Mural pt4 (Stephanie Roberts) ...http://chartistnewport.googlepages.com/ - John Wilson, 31 October 2007, v1.0. .....listens at a press conference during the 5th Global In this photo taken Wednesday, Aug..... It was the site of the last large-scale armed insurrection in Britain, the ...
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   Thursday 03 October 2013 .... The mural depicts a fatal confrontation between democracy protesters and troops at Newport's Westgate Hotel in ... Insurrectionbrewing in Wales over Chartist mural's destruction as Newport City Council plans ..

   
   

   

   
   

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