Friends of Newport Museum and Art Gallery

The Lost Plaques: Goscombe John's plaques to the memory of Alderman Thomas Jones, ship owner, coal exporter and Mayor of Newport in 1892-3.  A newspaper drawing of Thomas Jones' memorial plaque When Thomas Jones died in New Zealand on October 18, 1903 his Welsh friends asked the Welsh artist Goscombe John to create two memorial plaques to commemorate his life in Wales. One of them was to be created in bronze. Questions come to mind. Who was Thomas Jones and why did he deserve this honour and where are the plaques today? However his story is relevant because just as we are trying to defeat Corona Virus he was trying to defeat tuberculosis a bacterial disease of which many people were dying in his lifetime. The disease had been known since ancient times but in the 18th and 19th centuries it increased due to the growth of industrialisation leading to large urban areas. It affected the rich and the poor and was not effectively defeated until and the BCG vaccine became available in ...

  Four videos were made for 'Art on the Hill Newport' 2020 f or which members of the Friends of Newport Museum and Art Gallery  gave a talk on a work of art chosen from Newport and Art Gallery's collection. Each.   1.  James Milne works for National Museum Wales but had studied art and photography and has exhibited his work in our Art Gallery. He tells us what interests him about the complexities of subject and composition in a painting by Welsh artist, Ernest Zobole. Click here for more information about Ernest Zobole 1927-99. 2.  Jon Glasbrook Griffiths, tells us the story of Swansea artist Evan Walters. Jon compares the popular, more conventional work for which Walters was famed, against his later controversial and experimental work with 'double images'. Jon studied art and has long had an interest on Evan Walters' art career. Click here for more information about Evan Walters 1893-1951. 3.  Richard Frame studied art at Newport College of Art and i...

  Richard Frame and  John Frost's Grave Stone  On Richard Frame's regular trips to Newport Museum and Art gallery he would always pause at the cabinet that housed the Chartist Collection. It  included a photograph of John Frost’s house in Stapleton, near Bristol, where he went to live with his wife and daughter when he was finally allowed to return to Britain in 1856. John Frost was  born on 25th May 25 1784,  in  Newport , Monmouthshire, and died on  27  July 1877, near   Bristol .  He was a hero of  Chartism  which was  the first mass political reform movement and was leader of the Newport rising of November 4, 1839, in which about 20 Chartists were killed by troops.  He was a prosperous draper and tailor in Newport and served as a member of Newport’s first elected town council from 1835, and as a magistrate from 1836–39 and mayor from 1836–37. He was a   delegate   from Monmouthshire to the Chartist ...

Musket balls and misconceptions by Ray Stroud Artist unknown ©  Newport Museum and Art Gallery         Many youngsters through the years have found it difficult to resist the temptation of squeezing their fingers into the holes in the pillars of the Westgate Hotel.   We had all, probably, been regaled with stories of the Chartist attack on the Westgate, and of the musket balls that had penetrated the building during the battle.   But were these tales based on truth or myth?   In recent years, many in Newport have adopted the ‘myth’ position, arguing that they had been drilled into the pillars at a later date, possibly to attach gates or some other structure.   But does that theory line up with the historical evidence? The holes found in the pillars as they look today.  © Ray Stroud         The portico, which today sadly stands concealed behind sheets of chipboard, is the only remaining feature of a...