'Newport First Stop' - 100 Years of News Stories
[ Contents ] [ Acknowledgements ] [ Preface ] [ Postscript ] [ Chronology ]
[ 1800 - 29 ] [ 1830 - 39 ] [ 1840 - 49 ] [ 1850 - 59 ] [ 1860 - 69 ] [ 1870 - 79 ] [ 1880 - 89 ] [ 1890 - 99 ]
[ 1880 ] [ 1881 ] [ 1882 ] [ 1883 ] [ 1884 ] [ 1885 ] [ 1886 ] [ 1887 ] [ 1888 ] [ 1889 ]

Newport Past
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1887

County Observer. 29th January, 1887
The Wreck of a Newport Steamship

Lloyds agent at Lisbon telegraphs that information has been received from Peniche that the British Steamship 'Brentford' from Newport to Malta, has been totally wrecked, all on board being lost except one man. The 'Brentford' was a screw steel steamship of 2143 gross tons, built at West Hartlepool in 1885 and was owned by Messrs Watts, Ward & Co of Newport.


County Observer. 23rd April, 1887
The Murder of Colonel Roden

Colonel Roden, of Ty Brith near Newport, has been tragically killed in Corsica. The news was received by his daughter shortly before she joined him in that island.

The Colonel was a director of the Argentilla Silver Lead Mines at Calvi, and had been out there to supervise the running of the Company for a short time. He was living in a house at the works, and had arranged for a new closet to be constructed, in the garden of the house, by three carpenters. On leaving the house after lunch he found only two of the men at work, the third had gone off shooting without permission. When the man returned the Colonel abused him about the work, took him by the throat, and shook him. The man, who was called Pair, infuriated at this attack, shot the Colonel in the abdomen, and he died almost immediately. Pair is now in prison awaiting trial.

Colonel Roden's body has been enclosed in a zinc shell and then in two others of wood, and interred in the cemetery of Galeria, from whence it has since been exhumed and sent back to England by the Steamship 'Noruban', for burial near his home.


The Star of Gwent and South Wales Times, 10th June, 1887
Mr Gladstone at Newport

Follow this link for photograph and full report.


Merlin. 20th June, 1887
Fifty Years a Queen

There is no town in the Kingdom, whose progress has been more marked, than that of Newport during the period of fifty years, which today marks the Jubilee of Her Majesty's reign. On the 20th June 1837, docks were unknown at Newport, the slight railway accommodation to the Borough would in these days be regarded as quite worthless; from the river to High Street a narrow pill slowly wended its way, whilst the width of the roadway did not exceed ten or eleven feet.

In 1837 nearly the whole of the traffic with Newport, was conveyed by the Monmouthshire Canal, whilst passengers had to content themselves with the old stage coaches, carriers vans, and omnibuses. Compared with today Newport was simply a rural village. Its population did not exceed 9000, the inhabited houses being about 1500. Today, the population of the town exceeds 40,000, the number of inhabited houses is fully 7000.

The Alexandra and Newport Docks have been constructed, a perfect network of railways runs into the town, and we are exporting over three million tons of coal per annum.

These particulars, brief though they are, will serve to show the wonderful development of Newport from that day, precisely fifty years ago, when Victoria was informed that she had succeeded to the throne.

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'Newport First Stop' - 100 Years of News Stories
[ Contents ] [ Acknowledgements ] [ Preface ] [ Postscript ] [ Chronology ]
[ 1800 - 29 ] [ 1830 - 39 ] [ 1840 - 49 ] [ 1850 - 59 ] [ 1860 - 69 ] [ 1870 - 79 ] [ 1880 - 89 ] [ 1890 - 99 ]
[ 1880 ] [ 1881 ] [ 1882 ] [ 1883 ] [ 1884 ] [ 1885 ] [ 1886 ] [ 1887 ] [ 1888 ] [ 1889 ]

Newport Past
[ Picture Gallery ] [Home Page ]