Welsh Journals

THE MERTHYR RIOTS: SETTLING THE ACCOUNT On 2 June 1831, after a month of increasing disorder, a majority of the working population of Merthyr Tydfil, impelled by a variety of motives, in part instinctive and irrational, but in part politically and socially purposive to a degree hitherto unknown, broke into riot and insurrection, and, led by the ironstone miners of William Crawshay, attacked the houses of ironmasters and local bailiffs, overthrew the civil power.1 On the following morning, a detachment of the 93 rd Highland Regiment, hastily summoned from Brecon, marched to the Castle Inn, in the centre of the town, where the High Sheriff of Glamorgan was waiting with the masters and magistrates. A crowd of many thousands, led by the miner Lewis Lewis, attacked them, seized their weapons. The troops opened fire, and after a pro- tracted struggle, cleared the street, inflicting a hundred casualties, a score of them fatal. In the face of sustained sniping and a threatened renewal of the assault, however, the Highlanders were compelled to withdraw, moving to Penydarren House, a strategically-placed mansion, and abandoning the town to the rioters. For eight days, Penydarren House was the sole refuge of authority, at first in a state of semi-siege, later as a base for reconquest, as troops converged on Merthyr from all quarters. For by Saturday, 4 June, the troubles had assumed the form of armed insurrection. Rioters commandeered arms and explosives, set up road-blocks, formed guerilla detachments, with a full revolutionary ritual of mass-demonstrations, flagbearers, torchbearers, banners capped with a symbolic loaf and literally dyed in blood. Several hundreds of them, armed and drilled in para-military formation and acting under some form of effective central direc- tion, attacked the troops advancing on the town. On the Brecon Road, they ambushed the 93rd's baggage-train, under escort of forty of the Glamorgan Yeo- manry, and drove them into the hills, beating off a relief force of a hundred cavalry sent from Penydarren House. On the Swansea Road, they ambushed and dis- armed the vanguard of the Swansea Yeomanry and threw them back in disorder to Neath. In the evening, as the wave of strikes and demonstrations rolled over Northern Monmouthshire, down the Neath and Swansea Valleys, the revolt reached its climax, with a mass demonstration against Penydarren House. But, with hundreds fleeing from the town and panic spreading, the magis- trates, by promises of negotiation and clemency, the reception of deputations, and the concentration of troops in battle array, succeeded in weakening the rioters' resolve and dividing their counsel. No attack materialised, and during Sunday there was increasing bewilderment and loss of nerve. The final crisis came on the 6th, when four hundred and fifty troops from Penydarren marched to the Waun, above Dowlais, and, with levelled weapons, dispersed the mass-meeting 1 There is no adequate analysis of the rising. For a general account, see David Williams, John Frost (Cardiff, 1939), PP- 115-116, Modern Wales (London, 1950), pp. 233-34, Bywgraffiadur, sub Lewis Lewis and Richard Lewis. The latest pamphlet is Harri Webb, Die Penderyn and the Merthyr Rising of 1831 (Swansea, 1956). General comment on the rising is based on a study of the parish minute-books of Merthyr Tydfil and the Merthyr Guardian for the period 1829-36.