Gwyn Alf Williams – The Melting Pot

Merthyr Central Library

by Carolyn Jacob

A ‘flourishing’ library existed in the Merthyr Tydfil Parish from 1846, although it consisted of only two dozen volumes collected by Thomas Stephens and Charles Wilkins. The books were originally for their ‘conversational club’ and believed to have been in the Temperance Room behind the Merthyr Market. Gradually a number of libraries developed in Merthyr Tydfil, Abercanaid, Aberfan, Dowlais, Penydarren, Thomastown, Treharris, Troedyrhiw and, outside the Parish, Cefn Coed. The ‘central’ library was located in the Town Hall from 1901 but transferred to two vacant shops in the Arcade by 1907. By 1918 The Arcade Library had a reference section and a sizeable number of books. In 1930 the Corporation had to find new premises for the Library and moved to 136 Lower High Street at an annual rental of £100. The Library was known as the Town Reading Room and both this library and the Thomastown Library closed in 1935 when the new Central Library opened.

Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

The Central Library, in a fine renaissance rectangular style, is a protected grade II historic building, it was purpose built and has always been a library. It was placed on vacant ground, given by the Council, which was once the site of the former St David’s School. The foundation stones were laid in 1935 and the building completed using money from the American Steel millionaire, Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie Trust donated £4500 on condition there was an adequate book fund and that a properly trained and competent Librarian be appointed.

The Library was designed by Councillor T. Edmund Rees (of Messrs Johnson, Richards & Rees, architects of Merthyr) and built by Messrs Enoch Williams and Sons, contractors of Dowlais at a cost of £8,500. The exterior is in an Arts and Crafts Modern style with Portland stone, hipped Cumbrian slate roof swept to wide eaves. An attractive feature is the large central doorway and Tudor arch in moulded surround to entrance. The interior has a panelled wooden entrance-hall, although sadly the original oak wood, which is a wonderful feature of this building, was painted during refurbishment in 2011. The stained glass as you enter the building commemorates the Urdd National Eisteddfod which was held in Merthyr Tydfil in 1987. The building was opened in 1936 by the Mayor, Lewis Jones who became the first borrower of a book from Merthyr’s new Library.

The first librarian, Mr E. R. Luke received a salary of £330 a year and not only spoke Welsh fluently but he also had a working knowledge of French, German and Latin. Merthyr Libraries have always provided a free library service for residents and visitors. The new library was a great success and the number of registered borrowers rose from 1400 in March 1936 to 10,765 by February 1940. As a child the historian Gwyn Alf Williams made ‘daring raids into alien territory in Merthyr Library’.

In 1946 Merthyr Tydfil became the first Authority in Wales to appoint a woman as Borough Librarian and an English woman at that – Margaret Stewart Taylor. She also became curator of the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and was a remarkable local historian. Miss Taylor wrote 23 books on a wide variety of topics, a classic work on library cataloguing and classification, biography, local history such as ‘The Crawshays of Cyfarthfa’, travel writings based on her own experiences and romantic fiction set in a fictional town which was a thinly disguised Merthyr Tydfil. She compiled and edited ‘Fifty Years a Borough, 1905-1955’ to commemorate the incorporation of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil. She set up a school library service and established local history as important in both the Library and the Museum. Margaret Stewart Taylor demanded high standards from her staff and would personally inspect the library shelves to make sure the books were all in strict order. A book incorrectly shelved would be left in the middle of the floor.

The Plaque on the exterior of Merthyr Tydfil Library by the doorway is dedicated to Richard Lewis, (Dic Penderyn). At the time of the 1831 Merthyr Rising he was a miner in Merthyr Tydfil. He was charged with feloniously wounding Donald Black of the 93^rd (Highland) Regiment. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Despite a petition of 11,000 names for his reprieve, he was hanged at Cardiff on 13 August 1831. His last words on the scaffold were reported to be ‘O Arglwydd, dyma gamwedd’ – ‘O Lord, what injustice’. He is buried in Aberavon. Later in the century another man confessed to the crime for which Lewis had been hanged.

There is also a plaque on the front of the Central Library dedicated to Ursula Masson, who was born Ursula O’Connor in Dowlais, and became a leading Welsh academic and writer who worked closely with Jane Aaron and Honno Press/Gwasg Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press, on the imprint Welsh Women’s Classics – to bring back into print the works of forgotten Welsh women writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Outside the Library, the Statue and Plinth to Henry Seymour Berry are Grade II Listed monuments. The statue stands at the centre of a semicircular forecourt in front of the Library, and it was designed by W. Goscombe John RA and erected in 1931. It consists of a bronze figure in full robes with a cocked hat in the crook of his left arm and a parchment grasped in left hand. The inscription:

Henry Seymour Berry, Baron Buckland of Bwlch, Hon. Freeman of the Co. Borough of Merthyr Tydfil.
Born 1877 – Died 1928.
Erected by public subscription.

There are recent plaques attached to the statue to mark the achievements of his two younger brothers. James Gomer Berry, Viscount Kemsley and William Ewert Berry, Viscount Camrose.

Merthyr’s Heritage Plaques: Gwyn Alf Williams

by Keith Lewis-Jones

Gwyn Alf Williams

Plaque sited at Lower Row, Penywern, CF48 3ND

A native of Dowlais, Gwyn Alfred Williams (1925-1995), was a lecturer at Aberystwyth University followed by professorships at York and
Cardiff.

His books on Welsh subjects include – ‘The Welsh in their History’ 1982, ‘The Merthyr Rising’ 1978, ‘When Was Wales?’ 1985 and ‘Madoc: The Making of a Myth’ published in 1979.

He was a Marxist who later joined Plaid Cymru.

He took part in many television progammes of which his series with Wynford Vaughan Thomas, ‘The Dragon Has Two Tongues’
aroused much interest.

The plaque has a mistake in that Gwyn Alf Williams died, not in Cardiff, but in Dre-fach Felindre, Carmarthenshire.

Penywern

by Carolyn Jacob

Penywern was a typical industrial village built for the workers of the Ivor Works in 1839. Here was the permanent barracks for the Volunteers. After the Merthyr Rising of 1831 soldiers were permanently barracked at Penywern to keep an eye on the growing town of Merthyr Tydfil. On the tithe schedule of 1850 the owner of the land here was the Dowlais Iron Company.

A section of the 1850 Tithe Map showing the barracks in Penywern

At first all there was in Penywern were the Barracks, as is shown on the 1850 Tithe Map, however by the 1875 Ordnance Survey map Penywern had developed and Lower Row and Upper Row are shown. The reservoirs and ponds which once fed water into the Dowlais Works are situated in this area. These are now of great historical significance, especially as so little now remains of the great Dowlais Works. There are 2 large and 2 small ponds east of Penywern and also a reservoir to the south.

A section of the 1875 Ordnance Survey Map. Two of the reservoirs can be clearly seen.

This was a self-sufficient community and there were a number of shops here. Late nineteenth century directories show that Morgan Evans was a baker, grocer, tea dealer at number 4 Penywern. The working men of the area were mainly employed in coal mining. The community built their community church vestry during the General Strike of 1926, when so many skilled men were force to be idle due to the national economic climate.

The famous historian Gwyn Alf Williams was born in Lower Row in a cottage belonging to his grandmother, Mrs Morgan. In 2005 the Dic Penderyn Society and the Merthyr Tydfil Heritage Trust erected a plaque on the walls of this property in commemoration of the birth of Gwyn Alf.

There was quite a large Spanish community here before the First World War. The Spaniards who settled here from 1900 onwards built Alphonso Street and King Carlos Street.

Alphonso Street. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

The exposed height of this area means that it is very vulnerable when there are any falls of snow. During the severe winter of 1947 a train at Penywern became snowbound for several days.

This village has undergone many changes in recent years; the Tre-Ivor Arms public house, now closed was once called the Ivor Arms. Penywern Chapel, was an Independent Chapel, but it was demolished in the late 1990s, and today modern houses are on its former site.

The Meaning of ‘Gurnos’

Gurnos
by Carl Llewellyn

Some time ago I read an article in an old edition of the Merthyr Express. It was written by a J.R. Evans of Aberdare who complained that many local Welsh place names were incorrectly spelt; he then gave his interpretation why places in our locality were so named. Many Welsh place names were bestowed centuries ago and were often descriptive of their pictorial detail. Perhaps because these place names were seldom written, and again because of the inability of the English to pronounce Welsh words, in some cases these words become so changed in form they become unrecognisable and unintelligible, with the original signification being entirely lost.

Examples of the mutilation of Welsh place names can be found in “Lechwedd” (meaning a slope) has become “Leckwith” near Cardiff, and “Rhaiadr” (water fall) becoming “Radyr”. When referring to the name “Gurnos”, it immediately brings to mind one of the UK’s largest Housing estates situated near Prince Charles Hospital to a majority of people but most of them are not aware of its origin and translation. We often find the name of parts of the body are used in place names. For instance we speak of head or top of a hill, for instance Penydarren, (pen, head or top; y, of the; darren, a rocky hill) also Troedyrhiw (troed, foot; y, of the; rhiw slope). So the word “Cern” meaning “side of the head”, is applied similarity to the side of the hill, which perhaps has an even surface resembling earth moulds protruding on the side of the hill. There is a diminutive plural suffix “os”, when appended to “Cern” gives us “Cernos”, The placing of the letter “y” before the word modifies it into “Y Gernos”, meaning the lower side of the hill. In the opinion of J.R. Evans “Y Gernos” has been incorrectly spelt by some as the “Gurnos”. I tend to agree with J.R. Evans over the centuries it’s possible the word has been corrupted either by incorrect spelling or pronunciation. On the site of Gurnos Housing Estate once stood the “Gurnos” farm whose name aptly describing its location.

Gurnos Farm by Penry Williams. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

Charles Wilkins in his History of Merthyr Tydfil calls the farm “Gyrnos” and gives it derivation as “Carn-nos” (carn, a heap of stones; nos, night), signifying “Night Watch Beacon” stating that it may have reference to the warfare day of the district. You the reader must make up your own mind on the explanations for the Welsh word “Gurnos”. I concur that Charles Wilkins reference is a romanticised version while J.R.Evans interpretation has more of a down to earth explanation.

These differing points of view reminded me of a television series, “The Dragon Has Two Tongues”, where Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, and Professor Gwyn Alf Williams gave their own passionate satire about Wales.