Climax of The Rising
The Chartists were convinced that some of their fellows had been imprisoned at the Westgate Hotel. Filing quickly down the steep Stow Hill, the Chartists arrived at the small square in front of the hotel at about 9.30 a.m. The flash point came when the crowd demanded the release of the imprisoned Chartists. A brief, violent and bloody battle ensued. Shots were fired by both sides, contemporary accounts indicating that the Chartists attacked first. But the soldiers defending the hotel despite being greatly outnumbered by the large and very angry crowd, had vastly superior firepower, training and discipline, all of which soon broke the crowd. The Chartists did manage to enter the building temporarily, but were forced to retreat in disarray. After a fiercely fought battle, lasting approximately half an hour, between 10 and 24 of their number (a fair estimate is 22) had been killed by the troops and upwards of 50 had been wounded.
Amongst the defenders of the hotel, Mayor Thomas Phillips was badly wounded and one soldier was seriously hurt, along with two of the special constables. As the chartists fled they abandoned many of their weapons, a selection of which can still be seen in Newport Museum.
An eye-witness report spoke of one man, wounded with gunshot, lying on the ground, pleading for help until he died an hour later.
Some of the Chartist dead were buried in Cathedral Church of St Woolos in the town where there is still a plaque to their memory. Some of the bullet holes from the skirmish remained in the masonry of the hotel entrance porch until well into modern times.
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