Newport

Newport, since 1891 a county borough of Monmouthshire, a municipal borough, and, with Monmouth and Usk, a parliamentary borough, is seated on the river Usk, about 4 miles from its mouth, 24 miles SSW. of Monmouth and 145 W. of London, and it is one of the principal outlets for the produce of the extensive collieries and iron and steel works in the vicinity. Its shipping trade has greatly increased, and with it its dock accommodation, which now covers more than 80 acres. Newport is the largest iron-exporting port in the kingdom, and ranks third amongst the coal-exporting ports. In some years 3,000,000 tons of coal are exported, and 30,000 tons of iron pyrites and manganese imported. The town has many fine public buildings, prominent amongst them being the town-hall (1885), erected at a cost of £30,000, and St Woollos' Church, occupying an elevated site, and in style partly Norman and partly Perpendicular. Besides its shipping trade, Newport has manufactures of india-rubber, gutta-percha, and railway and telegraph plant and wagons, whilst several important brass and iron foundries are in operation, as well as breweries and pottery-works. On 4th November 1839 the town was the centre of a Chartist outbreak, which resulted in the death of twenty persons, and the wounding of many more. Pop. (1801) 1087; (1881) 38,427; and in 1891, when it was created a county borough, 54,707.