Watkin George

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the death of one Merthyr’s greatest pioneers – Watkin George.

Watkin George is not a name that most people think of when talking about Merthyr’s great men of the past, but his contribution to the town’s history and his legacy is incalculable.

Born in about 1759 in Trevethin, Pontypool, very little is known about his early life, other than he trained as a carpenter, but by his early thirties, he had had married Anne Jenkins (of also of Trevethin), and had moved to Merthyr to work at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks as an engineer, as his expertise in designing and building metal structures had become well known.

He soon became the foundry manager at the Cyfarthfa Works, and in 1792, Richard Crawshay appointed him as a partner in the business. One of his first projects as partner was designing the Pont-y-Cafnau (Bridge of Troughs), a combined tramroad and enclosed aqueduct built to supply the works with limestone and water.

The Gwynne Aqueduct leading to the Pont-y-Cafnau (middle right) from a painting by Penry Williams
Pont y Cafnau Aqueduct, rendered still in a south-east isometric view, taken from the 3D Studio Max model. © Crown copyright: RCAHMW. This image is Crown copyright and is reproduced with the permission of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW), under delegated authority from The Keeper of Public Records.

This was closely followed by the incredible and innovative design for a mechanism to pump air into the blast furnaces – a huge timber aqueduct spanning the River Taff and providing water to power a 15m diameter waterwheel, used to work an air pump for blowing the iron smelting furnaces. The Gwynne Aqueduct and ‘Aeolus Waterwheel’ soon became famous throughout the country, and visitors would come to Merthyr just to see them. Indeed Some contemporary accounts actually referred to the Aeolus Wheel as ‘the Eighth Wonder of the World’.

‘Cyfarthfa Works and Waterwheel’ by William Pamplin. The Aeolus Waterwheel can clearly be seen at the centre of the illustration. Photo courtesy of Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery

In 1799, George designed what would become his most iconic structure – the Old Iron Bridge, and two years later he designed the Ynysfach Ironworks.

In about 1805, having helped Cyfarthfa Ironworks expand, George left the partnership. Reports vary on the amount of money he amassed for his 13 years of service, either £40,000 or £100,000 — “equal to one share”. He joined Pontypool Ironworks as partner to its owners Capel Hanbury Leigh (1776-1861) and Robert Smith, restructuring the works and making great improvements to balling and refinery operations.

In 1811 he prepared a design for Chepstow Bridge – a series of cast iron spans on the existing piers. His design was not adopted, and the new bridge was eventually designed by John Urpeth Rastrick. George’s designs for the Chepstow bridge are his last known work.

Watkin George died on 10 August 1822 and was buried at St Cadoc’s Church in Trevethin.

Today, of his works, the Ynysfach Ironworks Engine House still stands, and his Pont-y-Cafnau is the oldest surviving example of a cast iron railway (tramway) bridge and aqueduct, and is probably the second oldest surviving iron bridge in the British Isles (after Ironbridge in Shropshire), so he is certainly someone who should be remembered amongst the great men of Merthyr.

Pont-y-Cafnau in March 2017

The Aeolus Waterwheel – Merthyr’s Great Wonder

When Rev Sir Thomas Cullum (8th Baronet Cullum) visited Merthyr Tydfil in 1811, one of the sights he was most taken with was the mighty Aeolus Waterwheel at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks, and he even called it ‘the wonder of the place’. Some contemporary accounts actually refer to it as ‘the Eighth Wonder of the World‘. I wonder how many people in Merthyr have actually heard of it nowadays?

‘Cyfarthfa Works and Waterwheel’ by William Pamplin. The Aeolus Waterwheel can clearly be seen at the centre of the illustration. Photo courtesy of Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery

When Richard Crawshay became sole owner of the Cyfarthfa Works in 1791, he began making plans to extend the works and come up with innovative ways to increase iron production. In 1792, he made the engineer Watkin George a partner in the firm, and the latter began making significant progress in maximising the potential of the works.

His major contribution was the construction between 1793 and 1797 of a huge overshot waterwheel to provide the air for the four blast furnaces.

According to volume 5 of Rees’s Manufacturing Industry (1819-20):

“…..the water-wheel is 50 feet in diameter and six feet wide: it is chiefly made of cast iron, and has 156 buckets. The axle is a hollow tube, and is strengthened by twenty-four pieces of timber applied around it. On each end of the axis is a cog-wheel of twenty-three feet diameter, which turns a pinion. On the axis of these are two cranks, and fly-wheel twenty-two feet diameter, and twelve tons weight; each of the cranks gives motion to a lever, like that of a large steam-engine, and works the piston of a blowing cylinder or air-pump 52½ inches in diameter, and five feet stroke, which blows air into the furnace, both when the piston goes up and down. The work on the other side being the same, it actuates in the whole four of these double cylinders; the wheel makes about two and a half turns per minute, and each cylinder makes ten strokes.”

At the time, it was the largest waterwheel of its kind in the world and was named Aeolus after a character in Greek Mythology. Aeolus, as mentioned in the Odyssey and the Aeneid,  was the keeper of the winds and king of the island of Aeolia, one of the abrupt rocky Lipara islands close to Sicily. Later classical writers regarded him as a god.

The wheel was operated by water fed from streams across the river and transported by a massive iron and wood double aqueduct mounted on stone piers between 60 and 70 feet high. This was the famous Gwynne Aqueduct. Sir Charles Manby (later Secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers) visited Merthyr and commented that the aqueduct:

“…..maintained an apparent lightness of the whole that contrasted with the massy [sic] boundary of the river, has not only a singular, but also a very interesting and pleasing appearance.”

Gwynne Aqueduct from a painting by Penry Williams

This is the same aqueduct that was mentioned in the previous post about the Pont-y-cafnau (http://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=678)

The Aeolus Waterwheel continued to power the blast furnaces until the 1820’s when it was replaced by a steam powered engine, and was subsequently demolished.