# 1839 in Wales

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This article is about the particular significance of the year 1839 to Wales and its people.

## Incumbents

* Lord Lieutenant of Anglesey – Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey
* Lord Lieutenant of Brecknockshire – Penry Williams
* Lord Lieutenant of Caernarvonshire – Peter Drummond-Burrell, 22nd Baron Willoughby de Eresby
* Lord Lieutenant of Cardiganshire – William Edward Powell
* Lord Lieutenant of Carmarthenshire – George Rice, 3rd Baron Dynevor
* Lord Lieutenant of Denbighshire – Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 5th Baronet
* Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire – Robert Grosvenor, 1st Marquess of Westminster
* Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan – John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute
* Lord Lieutenant of Merionethshire – Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 5th Baronet
* Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire – Capel Hanbury Leigh
* Lord Lieutenant of Montgomeryshire – Edward Herbert, 2nd Earl of Powis
* Lord Lieutenant of Pembrokeshire – Sir John Owen, 1st Baronet
* Lord Lieutenant of Radnorshire – George Rodney, 3rd Baron Rodney
* Bishop of Bangor – Christopher Bethell
* Bishop of Llandaff – Edward Copleston
* Bishop of St Asaph – William Carey
* Bishop of St Davids – John Jenkinson

## Events

* March – John Frost, former mayor of Newport, is deprived of his position as a magistrate because of his Chartist sympathies.
* 30 April – Chartists riot in Llanidloes and seize control of the town for five days.
* 7 May – Henry Vincent is arrested after addressing a Chartist meeting and taken to prison at Monmouth.
* 13 May – Beginning of the Rebecca Riots.
* 25 July – William Ewart Gladstone marries Catherine Glynne of Hawarden.
* 28 August – Mary Anne Lewis, widow of Cardiff MP Wyndham Lewis, marries Benjamin Disraeli.
* 5 October – Opening of West Bute Dock.
* 4 November – Newport Rising: between 5,000 and 10,000 Chartist sympathisers led by John Frost, many of them coal miners, march on the Westgate Hotel in Newport, Monmouthshire, to liberate Chartist prisoners; around 22 are killed when troops, directed by Thomas Phillips, the mayor, fire on the crowd. This is the last large-scale armed civil rebellion against authority in mainland Britain and sees the most deaths.
* 23 November – Zephaniah Williams, one of the leaders of the Chartist march on Newport, is arrested on board ship at Cardiff.
* date unknown – Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis resigns as chairman of the Poor Law Commission, to be replaced by his son, George Cornewall Lewis.

## Arts and literature
### New books

* William Bingley – Excursions in North Wales
* Maria James – Wales and other Poems
* William Williams (Caledfryn) – Drych Barddonol

### Music

* John Roberts (Ieuan Gwyllt) – Hafilah (hymn tune)

## Births

* 9 January – Sarah Jane Rees (Cranogwen), writer (d. 1916)
* 13 February (in England) – Robert Bird, politician (d. 1909)
* 7 March (in Germany) – Ludwig Mond, German-born industrialist (d. 1909)
* 31 March – Thomas Henry Thomas (Arlunydd Penygarn) later known as T. H. Thomas, artist (d. 1915)
* 24 September (in England) – John Neale Dalton, royal chaplain and tutor (d. 1931)

## Deaths

* 27 January – Sir Charles Paget, MP for Caernarfon, 60 (yellow fever)
* 11 May – "Doctor" John Harries, Cwrt-y-cadno, physician, 54
* 16 May – Edward Clive, 1st Earl of Powis, 84
* 20 May – Rice Rees, historian, 35
* 29 December – Hopkin Bevan, minister and author, 74