John Frost (Chartist) - Later Life

Later Life

In 1856, when the residency condition was lifted, Frost was given an unconditional pardon and he straightaway sailed for Bristol. He retired to Stapleton near the city but continued to publish articles advocating reform until his death, aged 93, in 1877.

Frost was buried in the churchyard of the Church of the Holy Trinity with St Edmund, Horfield, Bristol in accordance with his will. In the 1980s Richard Frame found Frost's lost grave site and organised for a new headstone to be created and re-erected on the site, with the aid of a grant from Newport council. The new headstone was unveiled by Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.

A plaque has been added to the wall of The Mynde in Caerleon reading:

"In the last quarter of the twentieth century we have taken the Right to Vote for granted. This was not always so, and in 1839 after the failure of petitioning the Government of the day, the men of Britain and South Wales sought to change the system through marches and demonstration - this was known as the Chartist Uprising. John Jenkins the owner of Mynde House and Master of the Ponthir Tin Plate Works, concerned for his property, constructed the Mynde Wall in order to keep marauding demonstrators out. The wall in front of you is what remains of his efforts."

John Frost Square, in Newport city centre, is named in his honour and a mural of the Newport Rising by Kenneth Budd in the square is to be recreated in Newport Central Library

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