Peter Strong looks over 50 years of Alexander Cordell’s Rape of the Fair Country

IN FEBRUARY 1957, George Graber, a quantity surveyor living near Abergavenny, was excited to read an advert in the Argus announcing a local history competition run by the Monmouthshire Local History Council.

He had spent several years exploring Gwent’s industrial valleys and chatting to locals. Here was an ideal opportunity to show off, not just his research but also some passages from a novel he was already working on.

Given that his first novel, published under the pen name of Alexander Cordell, had earned him only £75, the £50 prize money offered by the Argus was also very tempting.

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South Wales Argus:

Alexander Cordell - real name George Graber

His entry, Life Among the Ironworkers of Garndyrus and Blaenavon 1810-1836, did not win but, not discouraged by this, he pushed ahead with his new novel.

It was published in 1959 as Rape of the Fair Country, the story of the Mortymers, a family of ironworkers from the town of Blaenafon and the community that had grown up at nearby Garnddyrys during the 1830s, culminating in the Chartist march on the Westgate.

It caused an immediate flurry.

It was praised in reviews in local, national and even American newspapers and from prominent individuals including Nye Bevan, J.B. Priestley and the playwright Emlyn Williams.

South Wales Argus:

Alexander Cordell came to Newport and arranged to visit to John Frost’s grave near Bristol. He is pictured with Richard Frame

The Times listed it as one of the best novels of 1959.

The Argus also loved it.

Roland Chambers, an Argus staff reporter, described it as "one of the greatest literary achievements of the century".

He praised the way in which Cordell had "thoroughly mastered the Monmouthshire idiom" and "the strong vein of bawdy humour" which went alongside "the tenderness and great depth of feeling".

South Wales Argus:

Former Argus feature writer Mike Buckingham (left) with Alexander Cordell

He described his portrayals of the rural landscape as "comparable to the finest descriptions I have read of Monmouthshire". But he warned that it was "… not for the squeamish. Cordell pulls no punches. There is a savagery in his expression and he swears powerfully and often".

Not surprisingly, there was a reaction to all this.

William Crawshay of Llanfair Court , near Abergavenny, a ‘ direct descendent of the ironmasters of Cyfartha’, claimed in the Argus that the book had been unfair to the Crawshays and other ironmasters.

The criticisms seemed to have no negative impact on sales.

By the end of 1959 it had run to five editions and had been published in the USA and eight European countries.

Between 1959 and his death in 1997, Cordell went on the write another 28 novels, including several which featured the Mortymer family.

South Wales Argus:

Alexander Cordell unveils the plaque to commemorate the Chartists buried in St Woolos Churchyard, in November 1988

It is safe to say that Rape of the Fair Country, written not by a historian, and not by a Welshman but by an English quantity surveyor, has done more than any other to spread awareness amongst the people of South Wales of the Chartist Movement and its place in our history and that no one more than Alexander Cordell has inspired budding local historians to delve into Gwent’s industrial past and unlock its secrets.

This is part of a series of features marking the 180th anniversary of the Chartist Uprising.