Digital archive

Enjoy a taste of the unique resources in Newport Reference Library's local history collection, including our collection of Chartist manuscripts, books and audio recordings. 

The local collection

• Hunting Sketches of Violet Morgan
• Lady Bunsen’s Sketchbooks
• Extracts from Lady Llanover’s Cookbook, 1867
• Part of the original manuscript for ‘Rape of the Fair Country’
• Original W H Davies documents
• Arthur Machen’s 80^th birthday speech
• 18^th century estate maps of Newport (Vann maps)
• Lamentable news out of Monmouthshire (1607)

Lady Delaney letters

• Mary Granville describes her meeting with Handel
• Mary Granville describes her invasion of Parliament
• Mary Granville describes her meeting with Jonathan Swift

Chartists

• A letter to Thomas Prothero, John Frost (1821)
• A letter to the Radicals of Monmouthshire, John Frost (1822)
• A Lawyer in a Panic (1822)
• The Trial between John Frost and Thomas Prothero- part 1 (1822)
• The Trial between John Frost and Thomas Prothero- part 2 (1822)
• Indictment against John Frost and others following the Chartist rising at Newport (1839)
• Chartist trial records: Examination of William Davies of Blackwood and Morgan James of Pillgwenlly (1839)
• Chartist trial records: Brief for the crown 1840

See also the Chartist collection at Newport Museum

Social welfare

• The Clark Report (1850)
• Newport Union - new workhouse and infirmary (1868)
• Newport Union - new workhouse and infirmary (1904)
• Report of the officer of health (December 1853 - September 1857)

Audio recordings

• The Lawyer in a Panic, read by Jes Hynes
• A letter to Charles Morgan, John Frost, read by Jes Hynes