MerthyrRising

Martyrs and Militants (Dic Penderyn in his proper context)


An exploration of Welsh history
by GG

I am writing this with regards to the recent report in the Western Mail about a film being made about Welsh working-class “Braveheart” Dic Penderyn. The film's producer/director Peter Edwards caused some controversy in stating that in his view Dic Penderyn should not be portrayed as a martyr and victim but more the “revolutionary militant”. Such a film is long overdue.

I agree with statement made by Peter Edwards as the Welsh having this “victim culture” mindset with all its “martyrdom pretensions”, a good example of how this mindset further works is in the way that contemporary Welsh Historiography, this largely “underdog” and “tame Taff” view, is portrayed. As an example from our contemporary times, I would draw attention to the following as comparison.

We are, these days, encouraged to ‘Cofio Dic Penderyn’ and the Merthyr Rising of 1831, but what of Lewis Lewis who planned and led the Rising at Merthyr. Then there is Edward Morgan and the Scotch Cattle Insurrection - particularly of the 1830s period? Why are we educated to ignore Lewis Lewis and forget Edward Morgan and his execution? Was it perhaps because Edward Morgan was known to be an actual leader of the Scotch Cattle and because the ‘Scotch Cattle’ was one of the oldest guerilla movements in existence and quite successful in its workers' revolutionary organisation. The ‘Scotch Cattle’ of course, had their roots in the “Pobl Ceffyl Pren” protests of the 18th century - coming to head in the “Food Riots” of the French Revolutionary war period - as the 18th century closed and opened on the 19th century and a century of insurrection.

It is thought that the ‘Scotch Cattle’ came into existence in the strikes of 1822 but they are chiefly known for their activities in Gwent of 1835. To my mind there is some greater connection between 1831 – 1835 – 1839 than altogether appreciated. It is then thought the ‘Scotch Cattle’ came to a violent conclusion in the strike around Aberdare in 1850. Of course, the fact that Edward Morgan was a revolutionary workers' leader and that the Scotch Cattle were an armed workers' movement - who engaged in a form of popular guerrilla war against the English crown - is the reason that we have had forced upon us an ‘Welsh Establishment Amnesia’ on this subject and interesting little-known chapter in Welsh History.

In other words, Lewis Lewis and Edward Morgan are too dangerous examples as compared to the “meek and mild” Dic Penderyn we’ve inherited.

As someone who can proudly state that I with a few others were laying wreaths on Dic’s grave long before he had become fashionable and rediscovered by the “British Left” of Wales, I find it somewhat irksome now to read the recent condemnations of comments on Dic as a hero rather than a victim. We should not surrender a more radical appraisal! I think you will find that the consolidation of this “martyrdom” view of Dic is further advanced by the memorial recently proposed to be set up at Port Talbot, that depicts a “safe and sanitised” Dic holding a dove and not a pike or gun!

This “martyrdom view” of Welsh history is by no means an accident but rather a long history in itself that stems back to the time of the Scots Stuarts replacing the Tudor Welsh, this gave rise to what I can only call WASPism = “Welsh Anglo Saxon Protestantism” - which began to really tie the knots of the rising Welsh Bourgeoisie to the English Crown and British Imperialism. However, a much worse disaster was to follow which produced, in the Welsh, a most hideous anti-Catholicism against the Irish for much of the 19th century - also making us hostile to the democratic nation-creating concepts of France and Italy.

This “martyrdom view” of Welsh history also serves a greater purpose, it became the tool and device whereby the rising Welsh Bourgeoisie, particularly of the Victorian period politically strove to show not only their loyalty to Crown and Empire - but also attempted to prove Welsh racial and religious superiority over the poor Irish and, at least, level peg with the Scots and in equal partnership with the English in empire building. In our own times it is very interesting to note the martyr machine still at work. Many recent published books on contemporary Welsh history are totally censoring and sanitising – indeed “Stalinizing” the 60s and the unique “insurrection” of MAC and FWA but thrust to fore in importance is the martyrdom of CYIG and language activists with all its pacifist connections.

2006 marks the 50th anniversary of founding of the first Welsh Republican Movement, whose members were linked to first bomb attack by political activists since the “bombing incidents" at Aberdare in 1850. A number of Welsh Republicans were arrested and at least one imprisoned where he came to meet contemporary Irish and other anti colonial rebels and revolutionaries. I mention this because I speculate a tradition of Welsh Insurrection with in mind, the latter years link between these 1950s Welsh Republicans and the rise of a militant alternative Radical Welsh Nationalism in the 1960s and the earlier links between the workers' risings of 1831 and 1839 and even the great Southern workers insurrection of 1910 –1911. Of course these years are best remembered for the 1910 “Tonypandy Riots” and the 1911 Investiture.

Perhaps the Welsh tradition of insurrection is not so visible, or tangible, in form but more so, in handed down traditions of a “hidden history” of maybe a “revolutionary folk tradition”, I find it very interesting that Rebeccites could remember “the knight of the long knives” and that Chartists remembered Glyndwr whilst their respectable Victorian Middle Classes still adhered to the Tudor scheme of things in which Glyndwr was still the “Papist Madman”.

Many of the 60s militants came from the Valleys. Some had family members involved in the great strikes of 1926 and 1935 - and having spoken to these people appreciate that they would not want to have their militant radical traditions be seen as one of a “victim culture” of self-imposed Welsh martyrdom - possibly best iconised by the death of Prince Llywelyn at Cilmeri in 1282, certainly an image and identity preferred by Bourgeoisie Welsh Cultural Nationalism from Victorian times to our own times.

I strongly suggest all read the book on the Newport Rising 1839 by 1950s Welsh Republican Ivor Wilks with whom I agree that this period was greatly critical to later Welsh history and which bedevils Welsh politics and society down to the present in matters of Devolution and Language issues etc. For let us firmly keep in mind that it was following the Merthyr Rising that the English state, in collaboration with the respectable Welsh-speaking Victorian Welsh middle classes, came to view Cymraeg as both dangerous and inhibiting to their industrious progress.

Further, as the opportunity of 1797 was lost by the Welsh to produce a ‘United Welshman movement’ so too was the case with Merthyr 1831 and Newport 1839. The events of that decade sees the largely Welsh-speaking middle classes taking sides with English Imperialist capitalism against a largely Welsh-speaking working class, best seen in the fact that Thomas Phillips the lord mayor of Newport, who ordered the troops to fire on the workers, was himself a big supporter of Lady Llanover’s Cultural Nationalism. This road eventually leads to ‘Tonypandy of 1910’ where respectable Welsh-speaking bosses, chapel and shopocracy jail the workers - many of them still Welsh speaking.

When the smoke from the guns had cleared, Wales had changed utterly forever.