Thomas Prothero (or Protheroe) (1780–1853) was a Welsh lawyer, mine owner and businessman, known as an opponent of John Frost. [1]
Thomas Prothero (or Protheroe) (1780–1853) was a Welsh lawyer, mine owner and businessman, known as an opponent of John Frost. [1]
He was born in Usk, the son of Thomas Prothero, a lawyer who was involved also in local politics in Usk and the Beaufort estate. [1] The supposition that he was illegitimate, based on his birthplace in the 1851 census for Malpas being entered simply as "Monmouthshire", is doubtful, given that the enumerator completed all entries in the same way.
The younger Thomas Prothero began life in the same directions as his father. He set up in business in Newport, Monmouthshire; and he became town clerk of Newport in 1807. [1] He was later joined in his law firm by Thomas Phillips, who became another influential local figure; they were in partnership from 1824 to 1840. [2] Prothero and his law firm were drawn into the electoral politics of the two local constituencies, Monmouthshire and Monmouth Boroughs.
He worked as agent for Sir Charles Morgan, 2nd Baronet M.P., both in politics and in management of the Tredegar Estate. The two were related: a local comment was that the antipathy Morgan's son Charles Morgan Robinson Morgan felt for Prothero was unjustified, because the younger Morgan was intending to stand for Parliament at Brecon, and Prothero's rent-gathering tactics in Monmouthshire would not matter there. [3]
Together Prothero, Sir Charles Morgan and allies got the 1826 Newport Improvement Act through Parliament. [4] It set up the Newport Improvement Commission, which took on a number of local government functions until it was wound up in 1850; [5] its effectiveness in the public health area was limited. [6] Its successor was the Newport Board of Health. [7]
Prothero and Morgan parted company in 1831, Prothero modifying a largely conservative political position to support a measure of political reform in the run-up to the Great Reform Bill of 1832. [8] He remained on good terms with William Addams Williams, Monmouthshire MP from 1831 to 1841, who was a reform candidate; and in Monmouth Boroughs Benjamin Hall was elected in 1831 with the backing of Phillips and Prothero. [9] [10]
A personal feud that developed between Prothero and tradesman John Frost coloured local affairs in Monmouthshire for two decades. As this conflict progressed, Prothero became an opponent of further reforms, and an opponent of Chartism. In the end he was an alarmist. His view that some Chartists in 1839 were intent on destroying the local gentry was, however, based on evidence of what some extremists were urging. [11]
The roots of the conflict were in a family quarrel, and the consequences of the will of William Foster; Frost was left with a debt to pay, in his view unfairly. [12] [13] Legal action for libel against Prothero led to Frost spending time in jail from 1822. Subsequently, both Sir Charles Morgan and Prothero were attacked in pamphlets by Frost. [14] As part of his campaign, Frost also petitioned Parliament at the time of the 1826 Newport Improvement Bill; [15] it passed against Frost's attacks, with the Morgan and Beaufort influence behind it. [14]
The feud flared up again after Frost became mayor of Newport in 1837. He accused Prothero of appropriating harbour dues; and again attacked Sir Charles Morgan. His stepson William Foster Geach was dragged into the conflict, accused by Prothero and Phillips of professional misconduct. [16] Prothero gave evidence at the 1839 Monmouth treason trial, sworn under voir dire . [17]
Prothero had built between 1835 and 1838 Malpas Court, a large house in grounds on the edge of Newport. The architect was Thomas Henry Wyatt. [18] The house was in the Prothero family until 1916. [19] It is now a Grade II listed building; it was in a poor state of repair for many years. [20]
From the early 1820s Prothero developed business interests in the coal mining area of north-west Monmouthshire, on the eastern edge of the South Wales Coalfield. His holdings came to include Butter Hatch Colliery, [21] Libanus Colliery, [22] Church Farm Colliery, New Place Pig, Plas and Place collieries. [23] By 1830 Prothero was announcing the use of a steam locomotive on the tramway run by the Monmouthshire Canal Company; [24] there was a newspaper report of the delivery of a locomotive for Blancyffin Isha Colliery in June of that year. [25] It was the Speedwell, built by Neath Abbey Foundry. [26]
With Thomas Powell, Powell leased the coal under Plas Bedwellty in 1823, from John Hodder Moggridge. This area was to the west, on the Glamorgan side of the Rhymney Valley. [27] As was the case for the unscrupulous Powell, Prothero trespassed in mining under the Tredegar estate, in his case from the Woodfield colliery. [28] Powell and Prothero were involved together in a long series of deals in partnership, in which shares in pits often changed hands. [29] In the 1830s Prothero was one of a small group trying to achieve a local cartel or "coal ring", the precise details differing in sources. According to one source, in 1837, with Powell and Joseph Latch, he helped set up the Newport Coal Company, an attempt to control coal prices in Monmouthshire. [30] In another, it was in 1833 (Newport Coal Association), with John Latch. [31]
Woodfield Colliery and Place Level Colliery were included in an 1842 report for the Children's Employment Commission by Robert Hugh Franks, detailing evidence of the use of child labour. [32]
Prothero married Mary Collins, who died in 1835; they had nine children. His second marriage was to Sarah Pattman. [33] Prothero's son George was father to George Walter Prothero, Arthur William Edward Prothero and Rowland Edmund Prothero.
John Frost was a prominent leader of the British Chartist movement in the Newport Rising.
Zephaniah Williams was a Welsh coal miner and Chartist campaigner, who was one of the leaders of the Newport Rising of 1839. Found guilty of high treason, he was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in Tasmania. Eventually he was pardoned, and his discovery of coal on that island earned him a fortune.
Newport is a city and county borough in Wales, situated on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, 12 mi (19 km) northeast of Cardiff. The population grew considerably between the 2011 and the 2021 census, rising from 145,700 to 159,587, the largest growth of any unitary authority in Wales. Newport is the third-largest principal authority with city status in Wales, and sixth most populous overall. Newport became a unitary authority in 1996 and forms part of the Cardiff-Newport metropolitan area, and the Cardiff Capital Region.
Monmouthshire is a county in the south east of Wales. It borders Powys to the north; the English counties of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the north and east; the Severn Estuary to the south, and Torfaen, Newport and Blaenau Gwent to the west. The largest town is Abergavenny, and the administrative centre is Usk. The county is administered by Monmouthshire County Council. It sends two directly-elected members to the Senedd at Cardiff and one elected member to the UK parliament at Westminster. The county name is identical to that of the historic county, of which the current local authority covers the eastern three-fifths. Between 1974 and 1996, the county was known as Gwent, recalling the medieval kingdom which covered a similar area. The present county was formed under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, which came into effect in 1996. In his essay 'Changes in local government', in the fifth and final volume of the Gwent County History, Robert McCloy writes, "the local government of no county in the United Kingdom in the twentieth century was so transformed as that of Monmouthshire".
Monmouthshire, also formerly known as the County of Monmouth, was one of the thirteen historic counties of Wales in the south-east of Wales, on the border with England. Its area now corresponds approximately to the present principal areas of Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent, Newport and Torfaen, and those parts of Caerphilly and Cardiff east of the Rhymney River.
Risca is a town in the Caerphilly County Borough and the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in south-east Wales. Risca has a railway station, re-opened on the Ebbw Valley Railway in February 2008, after a gap of 46 years. It is split into two communities; Risca East and Risca West. It has a population of 11,700. Cardiff the capital of Wales can be reached in under 28 minutes from the nearby railway station of Risca and Pontymister station which reopened in 2008 after a gap of nearly 60 years.
Tredegar is a town and community situated on the banks of the Sirhowy River in the county borough of Blaenau Gwent, in the southeast of Wales. Within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire, it became an early centre of the Industrial Revolution in Wales. The relevant wards collectively listed the town's population as 15,103 in the UK 2011 census.
The Newport Rising was the last large-scale armed rising in Wales, by Chartists whose demands included democracy and the right to vote with a secret ballot.
The Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal is a small network of canals in South Wales. For most of its currently (2018) navigable 35-mile (56 km) length it runs through the Brecon Beacons National Park, and its present rural character and tranquillity belies its original purpose as an industrial corridor for coal and iron, which were brought to the canal by a network of tramways and/or railroads, many of which were built and owned by the canal company.
Oakdale is a large village in Caerphilly county borough, Wales, 9½ miles north of Caerphilly itself, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire. Situated in the Sirhowy valley, it is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east of Blackwood, with which it forms a conurbation. At the 2001 census Oakdale had a population of 4,478.
This article is about the particular significance of the year 1839 to Wales and its people.
Godfrey Charles Morgan, 1st Viscount Tredegar was a Welsh officer, a General in the British Army, and a peer in the House of Lords.
Nantyglo is a village in the ancient parish of Aberystruth and county of Monmouth situated deep within the South Wales Valleys between Blaina and Brynmawr in the county borough of Blaenau Gwent.
This is a list of Sheriffs of Monmouthshire, an office which was created in 1536 but not fully settled until 1540.
The Shire Hall, Monmouth, Wales, is a prominent building on Agincourt Square in the town centre. It was built in 1724, and was formerly the centre for the assize courts and quarter sessions for Monmouthshire. The building was also used as a market place. In 1839–40, the court was the location of the trial of the Chartist leader John Frost and others for high treason for their part in the Newport Rising.
Charles Octavius Swinnerton Morgan DL, JP, FRS, FSA, known as Octavius Morgan, was a British politician, historian and antiquary. In 1840, in his capacity as a JP he served on the Grand Jury at Monmouth which found John Frost and his fellow Chartists guilty of high treason. He was a significant benefactor to the British Museum, in which there is a collection that is named after him. Vincent and Leopold (2015:3) observed: 'The protoacademic approach of nineteenth-century collectors, such as Octavius Morgan (1803–1888) and Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826–1897), was instrumental to the establishment and growth of some of the most comprehensive collections of horology, chief among them found in the British Museum, London.'
Charles Morgan Robinson Morgan, 1st Baron Tredegar, known as Sir Charles Morgan Robinson Morgan, 3rd Baronet from 1846 to 1859, was a Welsh Whig peer and a member of the House of Lords.
Sir Thomas Phillips was a Welsh lawyer, politician, and businessman, who was Mayor of Newport in Monmouthshire at the time of the Newport Rising in 1839.
Chartism originated in Wales in Carmarthen under the influence of Hugh Williams, a solicitor and radical reformer. Williams claimed he "got up the first radical meeting in south Wales" in the autumn of 1836 when he founded Carmarthen Working Men's Association. This followed on from the foundation the previous year of the London Working Men's Association by William Lovett and Henry Hetherington, Hetherington was a friend of Hugh Williams and is likely to have influenced his activities in south Wales. The People's Charter, embodying six points, was published in May 1838, with an address by Lovett and Hetherington. It became the focus of widespread meetings in support of its objectives throughout Britain. The People's Charter was later published in Welsh increasing the movement's appeal in Welsh-speaking areas. Chartism in Wales reached its climax in November 1839 with the Newport Rising and subsequent treason trial of Chartist leaders.
Machen House is a country house in the hamlet of Lower Machen, to the west of the city of Newport, Wales. The house was built in 1831 for the Rev. Charles Augustus Morgan, vicar of Machen and scion of the Morgan family of Tredegar House. In the mid-20th century, Machen was the home of the Conservative politician Peter Thorneycroft, who sat as the Member of Parliament for Monmouth. Machen House is a Grade II* listed building. Its gardens and grounds are listed at Grade II on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales. A bothy and a bee bole in the grounds of the house are both listed at Grade II. The house remains a private residence and is not open to the public.