Cylchgronau Cymru

views of the Tenby Improvement Association.1 Several advertisers had a brief existence, registered as newspapers and stamped to take advantage of the free carriage by the mails. They carried very little news, but printed stories and general matter to induce readers to look through them, were usually given gratis and, as has been observed, were 'quite worth the sum charged'. The working-class movement had its press, Y Gweithiwr, Udgorn Cymru, and the Advocate and Merthyr Free Press.2 Morgan Williams of Penyrheol-Gerrig, a flannel weaver, had a hand in all three. John Thomas, a Merthyr schoolmaster, helped with the Gweithiwr, and David John, Junior, of Georgetown, the son of a Unitarian minister, helped with the Udgorn. These, and similar English papers, Hetherington's Twopenny Despatch, and Vincent's Western Vindicator, created alarm and excitement amongst the magistrates who believed them to be the principal cause of working-class discontent, and who kept a close watch on them, sending copies to the Home Office to urge that legal proceedings be taken against them. The Gweithiwr, the Advocate, and the Udgorn at first were unstamped, and so could not legally print news. The unstamped Udgorn, besides risking prosecution when it made references to events, also failed to satisfy its readers because it contained so little news. In October 1841, a committee of the Working Men's Press and Publications, the name given to the Udgorn's shareholders, decided to publish it as a stamped paper. The Stamp Office delayed sending the sheets for six months, but the enlarged Udgorn came out in April 1842 in time to give support to the National Charter Association. It was a fortnightly, and lasted until the end of October. Its sales were not more than 500 to 600, possibly because 4d. a copy was too high a price for many, and it received no more than half a dozen small advertisements. Though profit was not the aim of its promoters, they could not continue to publish it indefinitely at a loss.3 One or two other papers may be described to illustrate some of the forces making for newspaper promotion in the later part of the period. The Swansea Journal4 was started by William Henry Smith, a barrister, owner of a brickworks, principal shareholder in the 1 Complete holdings at N.L.W. P.R.O., HO/52/25; copy of Gweithiwr (photostat at N.L.W.). Complete files of Udgorn at Cardiff. P.R.O., H.O.40/57; 45/54: copies of the Advocate. D. Williams, John Frost (Cardiff, 1939), C. Wilkins, History of Merthyr Tydvil (1867 ed.). pp. 306-9; (1908 ed.). pp. 422-6. P.R.O. H.O.40/40. 57; letters of Bute to Normanby. Cardiff Pub. Lib., Bute MSS. XX/8, 20, 75, 100, 108, 112, 114, 121, 128, 161. 4 Complete holdings at Royal Institution of South Wales.