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# Volume 2, Number 39
- URL: https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/volume-2-number-39/
- Published: 2026-09-26T06:00:35.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-26T06:00:35.000Z
- Description: Two boys drown in the Mill-pond, the new cemetery, a dirty steam packet, a diminutive little urchin, shameless language in Friars' Fields, the Newport Sacred Harmonic Society, the Soldiers' Coffee House and the Clown Cricketers visit the Marshes.
- Author: Newport Cornucopia
- Tags: News

Welcome to another issue of The Newport Cornucopia where we dig through the newspapers archives for interesting news articles and adverts. All articles are posted verbatim and most headlines are original (headlines in quotes are my own).

## Sign up for The Newport Cornucopia

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![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-08.34.45.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 11th June, 1859](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3398559?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

## Drowned in the Mill Pond

On Monday afternoon last, two cousins, one named John Rossiter, aged twelve years, and the other, James Rossiter, nine years and six months, sons of two labouring men, who were brothers, were at play on the ice which still remained upon the Mill-pond. One was kicking a turnip about, when his attention was attracted by a companion on the bank—about thirty feet distance. They were talking together, when the little cousin came up, sliding along happily. In a moment, the poor child fell through a broken part of the ice, and shouted "Jimmy, lend me a hand," as he was struggling in the water. 

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-14-at-12.51.01.png)

Source: [Newport Past](https://www.newportpast.com/gallery/maps/tithe/tithe1.htm?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

His cousin tried to rescue him, but also fell in and, lamentable to relate, both sunk, never to rise again alive. An alarm was instantly raised but though Mr. John Rees and another man proceeded to the spot as quickly is they could in a boat (half-full of water), and threw out a grappling iron, it was twenty minutes before the body of one of the poor boys was recovered, quite dead and the other was not brought to the surface until the following morning.

William Brewer, Esq., surgeon, held an inquest on view of the bodies, at the Moulders' Arms Inn, Marshes-road, on Wednesday, when the jury returned a verdict of "accidentally drowned."

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 20th January, 1854*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3395885/3395889?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-08.40.51.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 11th June, 1859](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3398559?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

## 'A Struggling Pill Man'

### The New Cemetery

Sir, I am a struggling man at Pillgwenlly: I fee the pressure of the heavy rates so much talked of lately by your paper, that £4,000 or £5,000 are to be laid in preparing a new burial ground, three-fifths of which sum is to be borne by the Pillgwenlly ratepayers. It appears, also, that a head-gardener and labourers are to be employed at a cost of some £300 a-year; and the Board has lately advertised for a clerk at a salary of £80 a-year *and a house.* 

What I wish to know, Mr. Editor, for the information the ratepayers, is, why we are to have the additional burden of £400 or £500 cast upon us, to build the clerk a house, when it is understood the head-gardener is to live on the premises ? and why the clerk is to be paid so high a salary—being some £20 or £30 a-year too much, which, as the money is to be borrowed on account of the rates, is equal to another £400 or £500! The vestry should oppose lavish expenditure. Then, why need the clerk be confined to the duties of that office exclusively, which occupy two hours in each day? 

By dispensing with such a covenant, and appointing a person resident in the town, holding some other occupation, the advantages, I think, would be four-fold in our favour. 1st.—We should get a more efficient person. 2ndly.— We should save the expense of erecting a house in the graveyard. 3rdly.—A saving of about £30 a-year in salary. 4thly—The prevention of a vast amount of inconvenice to the public. 

It would appear that the Board, instead of much as possible within the limits of expenditure, are using their utmost endeavours to absorb the whole to be raised. I therefore counsel the ratepayers to speak out boldly when an application is made for "further powers."   
  
I am, Sir, &c.,  
A Ratepayer

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 20th January, 1854*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3395885/3395889?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

## 'A Dirty Steam Packet'

**To the Editor of the Monmouthshire Merlin**.   
Sir,—Permit me through the medium of your influential paper—the redresser of grievances, to direct the attention of gentlemen connected with the Steam Packet, from Newport to Bristol, to the dirty and inconvenient state in which the boat at Pillgwenlly appeared on Tuesday morning last, for conveying passengers on board the Glamorgan steamer.   

Hoping the above will be taken as a friendly hint, and the evil complained of removed,   
  
I am Sir, yours much obliged,   
Newport, June 4th, 1840\.   
**A PASSENGER.**

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 13th June, 1840*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3393205/3393209?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/NewportHistorySocial---FBEventPoster-Narrow.jpg)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-12.png)

### 'Assaulting a One-Armed Man'

George Tucker was charged with an assault upon Daniel Rees, a one-armed man. The defendant was boiling offal, causing an unpleasant smell. Rees said, his wife being ill, he went to complain to the defendant, who, without a word, knocked him down with a stick, and gave him three or four violent blows.

Maria Griffiths, whose house is close by, said she heard Rees speak, but did not hear Tucker say anything, neither did she hear any noise.

P.S. Morgan said he saw the complainant at the back of the house, and the defendant in front, but did not see them together.

Defendant in the most strenuous manner, denied the assault; he asserted that he neither saw nor touched the defendant that night. The explanation he offered was that the complainant was too drunk to know who had assaulted him, and that some one else was in the garden in the dark.

**The magistrates decided that the case was proved, and fined the defendant 10s. and costs.** 

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 11th June, 1859*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3398559/3398561?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

### 'Diminutive Little Urchin'

William Parry, a diminutive little urchin, was charged with stealing three pieces of tape, three papers of pins, and six balls of worsted, the property of Messrs. Taylor and Paradise, drapers. **Reproved and discharged**. 

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 6th June, 1840*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3393200/3393203?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

### 'Blind Beggar?'

Thomas Roberts, a beggar who professed to be blind, was charged with vagrancy, and intimidating persons of whom he had solicited alms, by using threats, and encouraging his dog to bite them. **Discharged, and ordered to leave the town immediately**.

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 6th June, 1840*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3393200/3393203?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

### 'Street Fighting'

Henry Francis was charged with being drunk, and having created an annoyance in the street by fighting, on Sunday last. The prisoner's face bore proofs of the row, being disfigured by eleven separate sanguinary wounds. **Fined 2s. 6d. and costs, or in default of payment, to be imprisoned for fourteen days in the House of Correction**. 

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 6th June, 1840*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3393200/3393203?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

### 'Shameless Language'

Mary Walsh was charged with assaulting Bartholemew Collins. The details of this case were disgusting, the parties, who were from Friars' Fields, using the usual slang of that den of infamy, and shocking the ears of the worthy magistrates by their shameless language. Mary Walsh, having confessed that she was drunk, **was fined 5s. for the offence**, and Collins was **ordered to pay 5s. costs**. The case was then dismissed.

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 6th June, 1840*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3393200/3393203?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

## The Newport Sacred Harmonic Society

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-14-at-13.06.04.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 27th January, 1854](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3395894?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

The Newport Sacred Harmonic Society was based on the Sacred Harmonic Society, an amateur musical organisation based in London between 1832-1888 who practiced sacred (religious) music and oratorios. It was noted for it's performances and Handel and at the inaugural concert in Newport Handel along with Mozart and Haydn was played. It even mentions solo performers travelling from Gloucester Cathedral. 

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 27th January, 1854*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3395894?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

The Society was still around in 1868 when they had a room on Station Street. 

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-14-at-13.12.59.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 12th September, 1868](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3442656/3442660/27/?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

An article in 1881 indicates that the society and stopped some years prior.

*Those of our readers who are familiar with movements made in Newport during the last 20 or 25 years, for the cultivation of musical taate, will readily assent to the statement that no gentleman has done more in this direction than our talented townsman, Mr H.J Groves. As orgainst successively at St. Paul's and St. Woollos Churches, and engaged extensively as a private teacher, his whole career in Newport has been associated with measures calculated in one form or other, to advance the art to which he has devoted himself. Not superior, it may be, to other professional gentlemen in acquaintance with the laws of harmony, or in the general qualifications necessary to a sucessful private instructor, he has, nevertheless, by his success in attempts to popularise concerted music, and his skill as conductor to choirs given an impetus to music culture among us in a preeminent degree.* 

*Back in the days of the *Newport Sacred Harmonic Society*, when oratorios constituted the chief study, and when less difficulty existed than seems to be found in these days in getting instrumentalists and vocalists to combine for the performance of elaborate compositions, Mr Groves was the wielder of the baton, and sedulously laboured through several years to familiarise the people of Newport with the master-pieces of Handel, Haydn, Mozart, &c,* 

*With less frequent appearances in public than at that time, perhaps, but still with a steady purpose to stimulate the taste for high-class music, he has worked on with his classes through succeeding years developing latent talent, and affording his neighbours opportunities of enjoying, from time to time, a refined pleasure which would probably not otherwise be brought within their sphere.* 

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 1st, April, 1881*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3440609/3440614/78/Newport%2BOR%2BSacred%2BOR%2BHarmonic%2BOR%2BSociety?from=search&ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

Below is an advert for a Piano Forte Warehouse operated by Mr H.J. Groves.

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-14-at-12.44.57.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 20th January, 1854](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3395885?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

## 'The Clown Cricketers Visit Newport'

### The Clown Cricketers *v.* Eleven Gentlemen of Monmoutshire

A three day match of a character quite novel in this district was played on the Marshes \[Shaftesbury Park\] last Thursday, Friday and Saturday, between a team of fourteen original clowns in costume and eleven of the best cricketers of the county. The clowns were successful by one run. 

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/image-3.png)

A poster from 1869 advertising the Clown Cricketers

A troupe of War Arabs and a band added to the interest of the proceedings by their respective performances. We append the score:

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-16-at-04.18.25.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-16-at-04.18.38.png)

[Source: Monmouthshire Merlin, 6th September, 1872](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3404244/3404249/40/?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

"The Clown Cricketers" were a famous 19th-century itinerant travelling cricket troupe and circus act from England that combined humorous, burlesque theatrical entertainment with genuine athletic and cricketing skill. They would play dozens of times a year and could attract crowds of thousands. At one point the team was managed by professional cricketer [Thomas Trelor](https://www.cricinfo.com/cricketers/arthur-trelor-21921?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk) who also took them to America in 1876.

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-16-at-04.23.08.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 20th November, 1874](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3405605/3405608/9/?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

Two years after the match on the Marshes, there was a court case where the landlord of the Tredegar Arms was seeking money owed for provising accommodation for the team.

These cricket matches continued into the 20th century with 'comic cricketers' entertaining crowds. [Here are some videos](https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/105430/?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk) from the time of the First World War.

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/image-4.png)

AI-Generate image

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-08.38.12.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 11th June, 1859](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3398559?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/GeorgeBatemans.png)

George Bateson's Ginger Beer Manufactory, Commercial Street opposite Hill Street

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

## Soldiers' Coffee House

This Institution has now been open for nearly four months, in a cottage on the hill opposite to the Barrack gate the object being to provide soldiers with more substantial suppers than the coffee and bread and butter they can get in the recreation room inside the barracks, and also to supply a quiet room for the use of men who wish to escape from the noise of the barracks, and avoid the temptations of the town. With the exception of a cap of tea, no food is provided for soldiers after their mid-day dinner and it is therefore very desirable they should have some means of obtaining refreshment at a moderate price and of good quality. 

The reading room has been much used of late, and on Christmas day more than sixty soldiers availed themselves of the opportunity of escaping from the noise and confusion of the barrack rooms, and spent their afternoon and evening at the coffee house. Classes are now held in a private room for those men who wish to attend them but all influences of a sectarian character are strictly excluded from the reading room, which is kept only as a reading and recreation room for men of all denominations, and is used by Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. 

The expenses of repairing and fitting-up the coffee house have more than exhausted the funds originally collected for that purpose, and money is now urgently needed to carry on the current, expenses of lighting, firing, newspapers, and wages. Food is necessarily sold at such low prices that but little profit can he made, and a soldier's coffee house can never be self-supporting, as are those established for workmen. Donations or subscriptions will be most gladly received. and may be paid into the National Provincial Bank, to the account of the Newport Soldiers' Coffee House.

— [*Monmouthshire Merlin, 8th March, 1877*](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3439527/3439532?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/IMG_3954-copy.jpeg)

View looking across the Fields towards Barracks Hill before the new road to Allt-yr-yn was opened. Photographed in 1908

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/South_Wales_Argus_1938_03_08_4--1-.jpg)

[South Wales Argus, 8th March, 1938](https://www.newspapers.com/image/1056628542/?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-13-at-16.41.25.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 4th March, 1837](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3392399/3392401?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/IMG_4930-1.jpeg)

Westgate Square in the mid 1930s. Source: Newport Transport: 80 Years of Service, E.A. Thomas

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-13-at-17.10.06.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 6th June, 1840](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3393200/3393202?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2025/01/image-56.png)

![](https://www.newportcornucopia.co.uk/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-09-at-08.21.34.png)

[Monmouthshire Merlin, 4th June, 1859](https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3398550/3398554?ref=newportcornucopia.co.uk)