He was apprenticed as a bootmaker to his grandfather and left home at the age of sixteen to become a draper's apprentice and tailor, first in Cardiff, then Bristol and later London.

After his release Frost turned his anger against Prothero's friends and business partners, notably Sir Charles Morgan of Tredegar House and Park, a major Newport and south Wales landowner and industrialist.

In response, while at a Chartist Convention in Pontypool, Frost responded to Russell in a straightforward letter, containing the contemporary Chartist songs of Wales, which gave expression to the feelings and determination of the Welsh coal miners: Uphold those bold Comrades, who suffer for you, Who nobly stand foremost, demanding your due, Away with the timid –'tis treason to fear– To surrender or falter, when danger is near, For now that our leaders disdain to betray 'Tis base to desert them, or succour delay

Records suggest that ultimately, finding himself unable to postpone the date of an organised uprising any longer and still doubting its success, Frost burst into tears.

The rationale for the set piece confrontation remains opaque, although it may have its origins in Frost's ambivalence towards the more violent attitudes of some of the Chartists, and the personal animus he bore towards some of the Newport establishment who were ensconced in the hotel along with 60 armed soldiers.

One of his contemporaries, William Price described Frost's stance at the time of the Newport Rising as being akin to "putting a sword in my hand and a rope around my neck.

The contingent starting from Blackwood was commanded by Frost, the detachment coming from Nantyglo by Williams and the main body of Pontypool by Jones.

Special constables were sworn in hastily, the known Chartists of Newport were arrested and shut up in the Westgate Hotel where the mayor held 30 soldiers in reserve.

The Cardiff magistrates were seized with panic: in addition to mobilising the special constables they built up serious military defences and the crew of an American vessel lying at anchor in the port were also brought to the aid of the authorities.

O'Connor offered one week's income of the Northern Star for a Frost fund and retained one of the best lawyers of the time, Sir Frederick Pollock as defence counsel.

Following a huge public outcry, however, these sentences were discussed by the Cabinet and on 1 February the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, announced that the executions would be commuted to transportation for life.

On reaching Van Diemen's Land (modern Tasmania), Frost was immediately sentenced to two years' hard labour for making a disparaging remark about Lord John Russell, the Colonial Secretary.

Duncombe refused to be defeated and in 1854 he persuaded the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, to grant Frost a pardon on the condition that he never returned to Britain.

Frost sailed for the United States six months after receiving his conditional pardon, with his daughter, Catherine, who had joined him in Tasmania,[6] and toured the country, organised by William Prowting Roberts, lecturing on the supposed unfairness of the British system of government.

This was not always so, and in 1839 after the failure of petitioning the Government of the day, the men of Britain and South Wales sought to change the system through marches and demonstration – this was known as the Chartist Uprising.

[16] A planning application was approved on 3 Apr 2019[17] to set up a quarter-scale replica of the Newport Rising mural in Rogerstone, three miles from the city centre.