Welshhist0rian

 *BOOK REVIEW* - kindly gifted.   Will McLean Greeley ‘Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate’.  This book was a welcome change to my usual reads, it was clear and to the point. I enjoyed the references to what George P. McLean was passionate about, and how progressive he was. I truly believe he was ‘before his time’ with the conservation of migratory birds, as well as his views on mental health and his struggles (mentally) during his political career, he became an advocate for mental health in his adult life before establishing an association of physicians, psychiatrists researchers and other mental health practitioners.  I also appreciate how Will questioned the language used during George’s career, he addressed it and highlighted how the language used was ‘offensive and disparaging’ and certain terms had ‘become increasingly offensive and unacceptable’, and that ‘it’s a sad reminder that racism is embedded in almos...

Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller, Lady Penrose was an American photographer from New York, she was originally a fashion model during the 1920s but moved to Paris where she changed her career to becoming a fashion and fine art photographer. Elizabeth was married to Aziz Eloui Bey, a wealthy Egyptian man whom she met whilst photographing Eloui’s first wife Nimet. After her marriage to Aziz, Lee moved to Cairo. Miller and Aziz divorced in 1947, and her second husband, Sir Roland Penrose was an English artist, historian and poet and during WWII used his artistic skills to teach camouflage. By U.S. Army Official Photograph - http://astro.temple.edu/~gurwin/hist.0690syb2005.html, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77888314 Lee was a war correspondent during the Second World War for Vogue and covered events including the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris and concentration camps Buchenwald and Dachau. Miller was part of the surrealist movement, which had developed post-W...

* Remembering the lives of those who died during the Newport Rising, but also remembering Kenneth Budd who created the original Newport Rising Mosaic located in what was John Frost Square * Today we remember the 184th anniversary of the Newport Rising, some of the photos shown here are from when I visited the Newport Rising exhibition at the Newport Museum and Art Gallery recently.      On the 4th of November 1839, the Newport Rising was a large-scale armed rising in Wales to free prisoners held at the Westgate Hotel (Newport). The Chartists involved were led by John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones, and the men who followed came from surrounding valleys areas. Frost was a former mayor of Newport, Williams was a publican from Blaina, and Jones was a watchmaker from Pontypool and their target, was the Westgate.                                      ...

  The Chartists were a group of working-class men who wanted democratic change. The National Archive definition states that ‘Chartism was a working-class movement which emerged in 1836 in London’. It saw expansion during 1838 and 1848 with activity in Wales also and their aim was to gain political rights for those of similar backgrounds, they had meetings and published pamphlets. (read more here ) (Image taken from Spartacus Educational  though it is titled ' The Chartist Petition (1843)'  I believe the date is wrong as a petition was presented in 1842 and I have found no reference to one in 1843) So to start off this post, there are a few definitions to make things clearer. Charter - a written statement of the rights of a specified group of people. Rotten/Pocket Borough - a parliamentary borough or constituency before the Great Reform Act of 1832, which had a small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain unrepresentative influence within the unreformed ...