Today in Labor History November 4, 1839: The Newport Rising began. It was the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain. It began when approximately 4,000 Chartists, led by John Frost, marched on the town of Newport. When several were arrested, other Chartists, including coal miners, many armed with homemade weapons, marched on the Westgate Hotel (where they were held) to liberate them. Up to 24 were killed when soldiers were ordered to open fire on them. The Chartists were fighting for the adoption of the People’s Charter, which called for universal suffrage, the secret ballot, and the right of regular working people to serve in the House of Commons. Three leaders of the uprising were sentenced to death, but popular protests got their sentences commuted to Transportation for Life, probably to Australia or Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania). America’s first cop, Allan Pinkerton, supposedly participated in this rebellion. He was a known Chartist in those days, a physical force man who loved to battle cops and Tory thugs. Because of his history of street violence and vandalism, he had to flee Britain in the dark of the night, ultimately settling in Illinois, where he eventually set up the private detective agency that would go on to murder numerous union organizers, and set up hundreds more for long prison stints through the use of agents provocateur and perjured testimonies.
The riots were depicted in the following novels: “Sir Cosmo Digby,” by James Augustus St John (1843), “Rape of the Fair Country,” by Alexander Cordell (1959) and “Children of Rebecca,” by Vivien Annis Bailey (1995).
Today I’m at the Terror Australis crime fiction festival in Port Huon, Tasmania - kicking off with a masterclass with special guest Ann Cleeves (of Vera and Shetland fame).
If any of you are in Tasmania nearish the Huon Valley on 26 October, you're very welcome to the launch of Murder, You Wrote, an interactive mystery (to which I contributed a chapter).
The launch is part of the Terror Australis readers and writers festival, and the book will be launched by Ann Cleves (of Vera and Shetland fame).
I'm back in a farm-lit reading phase. I needed some space after writing/living in the genre - but so glad to have picked up two of the latest books by Australian authors. One hilarious, the other hauntingly thoughtful and beautiful. What are your favourite farmlit books? Are they funny or sobering?