Powell, Thomas (1802?-1862)
POWELL, Thomas (1802?-1862)
Prominent Chartist. The son of one Richard Powell of Newtown who fought at the Battle of Bunker's Hill. The young Thomas was educated at a small private school in Welshpool and then apprenticed to a Shrewsbury ironmonger. On completing his apprenticeship he joined a wholesale house in London. It was here that Powell came into contact with leading radicals like the shoemaker William Lovett, and the leaders of the campaign for a free press including Henry Hetherington, William Carpenter and Richard Carlile. These three were regularly imprisoned for publishing radical journals without paying Stamp Duty. Powell joined them in the ranks of the National Union of the Working Classes and was involved in the British Association for Promoting Co-Operative Knowledge. Lovett and Powell broke with Robert Owen who, although he was a pioneering radical, liked to dominate the groups with which he was involved. Powell moved into Chartism which believed in achieving changes in society by political activity, which Owen rejected.
In 1832 Powell returned to Montgomeryshire. It was the London Working Men's Association, a successor to the NUWC, which drew up the People's Charter. Powell set up an ironmongery business in Welshpool and was very active in promoting the demands of the Charter. Lord Grey's Whig Government proposed limited reform which would still leave the majority of the male population disenfranchised. In Welshpool and Llanfyllin the working populations of the towns were under the domination of Powis Castle and Wynnstay. Newtown and Llanidloes, the county's manufacturing towns, were more radical with the factory owners being broadly in favour of the new Reform Bill and the workers in favour of more radical measures which would give them the vote. In the first elections after the electoral changes Powell campaigned for the Whig/Liberal candidate Col. Edwards, no doubt believing the radical element would have a better chance of influencing him. The new Whig administration ruled out any further electoral reform beyond their own Bill. Another cause of resentment was the Poor Law of 1834 which denied outdoor relief and would only give assistance through the new workhouses. This also helped to fuel dissatisfaction which increased support for those demanding that the People's Charter be implemented. Powell used his contacts with London Chartists to increase membership of the Working Men's Association in the towns of Montgomeryshire through public meetings with guest speakers like Henry Hetherington. In 1838 the Newtown and Llanidloes Chartists held a rally at Penygloddfa which attracted 4000-5000 people. By 1838 Powell's business had collapsed, perhaps as a result of his political activities.
Prominent Chartist. The son of one Richard Powell of Newtown who fought at the Battle of Bunker's Hill. The young Thomas was educated at a small private school in Welshpool and then apprenticed to a Shrewsbury ironmonger. On completing his apprenticeship he joined a wholesale house in London. It was here that Powell came into contact with leading radicals like the shoemaker William Lovett, and the leaders of the campaign for a free press including Henry Hetherington, William Carpenter and Richard Carlile. These three were regularly imprisoned for publishing radical journals without paying Stamp Duty. Powell joined them in the ranks of the National Union of the Working Classes and was involved in the British Association for Promoting Co-Operative Knowledge. Lovett and Powell broke with Robert Owen who, although he was a pioneering radical, liked to dominate the groups with which he was involved. Powell moved into Chartism which believed in achieving changes in society by political activity, which Owen rejected.
In 1832 Powell returned to Montgomeryshire. It was the London Working Men's Association, a successor to the NUWC, which drew up the People's Charter. Powell set up an ironmongery business in Welshpool and was very active in promoting the demands of the Charter. Lord Grey's Whig Government proposed limited reform which would still leave the majority of the male population disenfranchised. In Welshpool and Llanfyllin the working populations of the towns were under the domination of Powis Castle and Wynnstay. Newtown and Llanidloes, the county's manufacturing towns, were more radical with the factory owners being broadly in favour of the new Reform Bill and the workers in favour of more radical measures which would give them the vote. In the first elections after the electoral changes Powell campaigned for the Whig/Liberal candidate Col. Edwards, no doubt believing the radical element would have a better chance of influencing him. The new Whig administration ruled out any further electoral reform beyond their own Bill. Another cause of resentment was the Poor Law of 1834 which denied outdoor relief and would only give assistance through the new workhouses. This also helped to fuel dissatisfaction which increased support for those demanding that the People's Charter be implemented. Powell used his contacts with London Chartists to increase membership of the Working Men's Association in the towns of Montgomeryshire through public meetings with guest speakers like Henry Hetherington. In 1838 the Newtown and Llanidloes Chartists held a rally at Penygloddfa which attracted 4000-5000 people. By 1838 Powell's business had collapsed, perhaps as a result of his political activities.
Outbreak of violence
Trewythen Arms, Llanidloes
In the spring of 1839, Powell and two other leading Chartists were sent on a tour of Mid Wales explaining the People's Charter, and voicing concern at the setting up of the new police forces. The speeches these three made at Newtown were attacked in the press. The Times and The Shrewsbury News however reported further meetings at which they said the three had emphasised the rejection of violence. On the 30th April occurred the Chartist outbreak at Llanidloes. Powell was not in the town at the time but did hurry to the scene where he seems to have attempted to calm the rioters and urge them to return to work. He gave assistance to a Mr Armishaw who had been beaten by the mob, and got him away to safety. The Montgomeryshire establishment, anxious to clamp down on those involved in the radical interest, found that they could not charge him with involvement in this case and so charged him instead with sedition because of his speech on the 9th of April at Newtown. After seven weeks in Montgomery gaol Powell was released on bail, Dr Johnes, a radical magistrate from Lower Garthmyl standing surety for him. At his trial, the foreman of the jury was none other than the county's MP Charles Watkin Williams Wynn who was also Colonel of the local militia. Powell was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months in prison, a term he served with some of those convicted for their involvement in the Llanidloes riot. Powell moved back to London within a few months of his release and continued his involvement in radical causes, becoming Secretary of the Tropical Emigration Society and Editor of the Morning Star. In 1846 he accompanied a group of radical emigrants to Trinidad and then Northern Venezuela, sending back regular reports on the colonists progress. Despite the overall failure of the venture Powell remained in Trinidad until his death 15 years later, living at Port of Spain with his black wife and their five children.
[MC 80]
[MC 80]
Powell, Vavasor (1617-1670)
Goetre - once home of Vavasor Powell
According to his enemies, the son of an innkeeper and oatmeal dealer of Knucklas; worked as an hostler at Bishops Castle; sent by his uncle, vicar of Clun, to Oxford University, but dropped out to become a schoolteacher at Clun; m. (1) widow Mrs. Quarrell of Presteigne (2) Katherine, dau. of General Gilbert Gerard; became an itinerant preacher, 1638-9; went to London at the outbreak of war, 1642; returned to Wales after the surrender of Raglan Castle gave Parliament control, 1646; resumed his evangelism and created a band of missionary preachers, earning him the nickname, "Metropolitan of the Itinerants"; became pastor of Newtown; built a house at Goetre in Kerry; with the Act for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales, 1650, he was one of 25 Approvers who advised the commissioners; very active in replacing clergy for alleged incompetence and substituting puritans (e.g. he caused the rectors of New Radnor, Gladestry, Cascob, Cefnllys and Llandegley and the vicar of Llanbadarn-fawr to be deprived of their benefices 1650-53); protested at Cromwell's assumption of title of Protector and briefly imprisoned, 1653-4; suppressed a Royalist uprising in 1655; at about this time, Alexander Griffith, who had been expelled from his living at Glasbury for "drunkenness and lasciviousness", published the vituperative pamphlet, Hue and Cry after Vavasor Powel; arrested at the Restoration and released, 1660, he continued to preach and was arrested again, and imprisoned for rejecting the oath of supremacy; committed to the Fleet Prison 1660-2, Southsea Castle 1662-7; obtained release after the fall of Clarendon Nov. 1667, but was arrested on a preaching tour in Oct. 1668 and returned to the Fleet, where he died. [G.R.]
[DNB; MC 71, pp.11-12; Williams pp.214-216 (largely based on Griffiths' anti-Powell tract); CAO R/X/62]
[DNB; MC 71, pp.11-12; Williams pp.214-216 (largely based on Griffiths' anti-Powell tract); CAO R/X/62]