William Ferriday Chartist 1839

Short extract from the 2015 BBC documentary 'Michael Sheen's Valleys Rebellion'. The account of William Ferriday is based on David JV Jones account in the Last Rising which was published when I was his student in the 1980s. "Chartists in the Blackwood area were gathering up their weapons and making their farewells. One of these was William Ferriday, who had some fifteen hours to live. The illiterate son of a fairly violent and militant
family, William lived opposite the Lamb and Flag beerhouse in Blackwood and worked just over a mile away at Fleur-de-Lis. On this day he was
unusually quiet and when, about 6.30 p.m., two men called for him, he told his wife that he did not know where he was going or when he would be home. ‘I cried aloud’, recalled Mary Ferriday, ‘and the children as well. Some of them went after him. He kissed them again in the road and then said Goodbye . . Mary did not know what had happened to William. A week later, she arrived at the Westgate hotel, distraught and carrying her new born baby. The magistrates were in session interrogating suspects and witnesses. Somebody had given his coat to her and she learned he had been buried the previous Thursday, anonymously along with nine others at St. Woolos church yard'. p.123