1429 Joan of Arc and Charles d'Albret liberate the heavily fortified town of Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier after a siege. ..
Skerries Lighthouse, off Carmel Head, northwest Anglesey, was first operational on 4th November 1717. It was built by William Trench, who tragically lost his son off the rocks.
.. The Chartists…a pet topic of mine. The Newport Rising, 4th November 1839.
In the early 1800's, calls to reform to the elitist electoral system resulted in "The Reform Act of 1832". However, this act did not go far enough in the opinion of many working class people, as voters were still required to possess property worth £10, a substantial sum at that time. This division gave rise to the Chartist Movement, which called for the further following changes.
* The right to vote for men over 21 years of age.
* Secret Balloting
* No requirement for MPs to own property.
* Payment for MPs, so that the poor were not debarred.
* Equally sized constituencies.
* Annual Parliamentary elections.
In May 1838, Henry Vincent, a leading Chartist, was arrested for making inflammatory speeches, tried, and sentenced to twelve months in prison. Furious outbreaks of violence ensued, and Chartist John Frost called for a mass demonstration demanding his release.
This march took place on 4th November 1839, with 3,000 men marching with pikes, clubs and firearms from Pontymister ( and other places)to Newport.
Troops were called in, and when the chanting crowd arrived at the Westgate Hotel, the order was given to open fire. At least twenty men were killed and fifty more seriously injured.
Frost, along with other Chartist leaders, was arrested and charged with high treason. They were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. The brutality of the sentences was universally shocking, and the ensuing outcry forced Prime Minister Lord Melbourne to commute the sentence to life transportation.
The convicts were granted a total pardon in 1856 and Frost received a hero's welcome on his return to Newport. By the time of his death, aged 91, most of the reforms for which the Chartists had campaigned were enshrined in law.
In the 1960s a square in Newport was named John Frost Square and a 35 metres long mosaic mural was created in a pedestrian underpass, but controversially, as part of a redevelopment scheme, the mural was removed in October 2013.
More here-
https://cwmbranhistory.blogspot.com/2017/03/
I live a matter of yards from where the Lower Cock was( just up the road the Upper Cock pub still exists).
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1852 For the first time in its history, journalists were allowed into the House of Commons to report debates.
1884 Grover Cleveland (D) beats James G. Blaine (R) for his 1st presidential term, later becoming first US President to serve 2 non-consecutive terms.
1900 Britain's first driving lessons were given, in London.
.. On 4th November 1910, Ernest Thompson Willows made the first flight from England to France in his dirigible, City of Cardiff, having earlier in the year made the first flight across the Bristol Channel by airship, from Cardiff to Minehead. Willows was born in 1886 in Cardiff and started designing his own craft at the age of nineteen, and made his first flight in 1905, flying for 85 minutes from East Moors, Cardiff. Following his record breaking flights in 1910, he established a spherical gas balloon school at Welsh Harp, Hendon, and also gave joyrides over London. During the First World War, Willows built kite or barrage balloons in Cardiff. After the war, he continued with ballooning but was tragically killed, along with two passengers, in a balloon accident on the 23 August 1926 at Hoo Park in Bedford. He is remembered in Cardiff, where a road, a City Road Wetherspoons pub and Willows High School are named in his honour.
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Cwmbran was designated a new Town on 4th November 1949. Following the Second World War, it was noted that many of Britain's urban areas were overcrowded, with high levels of poverty. The New Towns Act 1946 allowed the government to designate areas as new towns, in order to disperse population and also to provide better services, therefore improving people's quality of life. Cwmbran was Wales's first such town and was based around the villages of Old Cwmbran, Upper Cwmbran, Llantarnam, Croesyceiliog, Pontnewydd and Llanyrafon. The bus station is still in the same place..but all that space to it’s left is built on.
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1956 200,000 Russian Soviet troops attack protestors of anti-Soviet movement in Budapest, Hungary.
4 Nov 1963 The Beatles topped the bill at The Royal Variety Show at The Prince Of Wales Theatre, London. With the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret in the audience, this was the night when John Lennon made his famous remark ‘In the cheaper seats you clap your hands. The rest of you, just rattle your jewellery’. The show was broadcast on UK television on the Nov 10th 1963.
@TheSirfurryanimalWales Nor me until today! I took a picture of the plaque out of habit to allow me to identify things if I ever refer to the photos again.
Willows' name is new to me, and I wondered why he seems so little commemorated outside of his own town.
I can only think he was overshadowed by Bleriot, the first to fly The English Channel and in a heavier-than-air craft at that, some 16 months previously (July 1919) .
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I was not surprised the authorities reacted so strongly towards the Chartists but am suprised the leaders were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered as "recently" as 1839. I thought that particularly grisly form of execution had died out or been abolished a century previously.
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[BTW, "hanged" is the correct, legal form of the verb "to hang", for executions. Objects are "hung".]
@ArishMell I looked him up some time ago when I noticed the Wetherspoons named after him ( not one I’ve been in!) but I suspect he’s not been heard of by most people.
