James Stephens

James Stephens (1821 – 14 November 1889) was a stonemason, Chartist, and Australian trade unionist. Stephens was born in Chepstow, Monmouthshire in south east Wales. As a youth he moved from Chepstow to nearby Newport, then a stronghold of formative Chartism, joined the Masons' Society in 1839 and that year was seriously injured in a fall of thirty feet whilst working as a stonemason. He joined the Chartist movement and was one of the participants in Newport Rising and the riot and retaliation at the Westgate Hotel when soldiers fired on the crowd of rebels, killing twenty. He was 'severely handled' but escaped to London. He worked as a stonemason at Windsor Castle but was dismissed when it became known that he was a Chartist. Working...