Welsh Journals

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NONCONFORMITY IN THE TOWN OF NEWPORT by G. W. J. LOVERING It needs an effort of the imagination today to visualise the town of Newport as it existed in the first half of the nineteenth century. It was a period of extraordinary growth. With* a population of little more than 750 inhabitants in the eighteenth century, it grew into a bustling industrial centre of 19,323 inhabitants in 1851 and 24,756 in 1861, and up to 1851 the population of the town exceeded that of neighbouring Cardiff. The main developments have been well documented: the opening of the Monmouthshire Canal in 1796 and its extension to Pillgwenlly, the construction of the Sirhowy Tramroad, the formation of the Tredegar Wharf Company, the numerous river wharves, the web of tramroads across Pillgwenlly, the advent of steam locomotives, the opening of the Town Dock in 1842 and its later extension, all followed in rapid succession. In the town itself three railway stations High Street, Dock Street and the first Mill Street station were needed for the new railway passenger services into the new town. As Commercial Street, Llanarth Street and Dock Street were gradually built up and new streets began to appear in Baneswell and Pillgwenlly, so the town expanded. As the centre of a new industrial population, it was inevitable that Newport became the focus of radical politics. Demands for the extension of the franchise, concern over the new poor law and involvement in the growing Chartist movement all commanded the attention of many Newport townspeople throughout the 1820s and 1830s. It is these topics that have so monopolised the writings of later historians that it is easy to overlook another aspect of town life that to many contemporaries featured as of at least equal importance. To many Newport citizens over these years it was the religious life of the town that featured most prominently in their daily lives. To obtain a balanced view of Newport society as it existed at the time, it is necessary to study the activities of the Newport churches as well as the details of Chartism. The formation of a Working Men's Association in. 1838 was no doubt an event of importance to the political radicals in the town, but so was the founding of the Newport Sunday Schools Union in 1831 to many zealous chapel members. At the beginning of the century the only places of worship in the town were St. Woolos parish church, the long-established Mill Street Independent (Congregational) chapel and a small Quaker meeting house in High Street. Yet the Religious Census of 1851 gives details of 22 places of worship in existence at that date and another half-dozen were built during the next decade.