The article below is transcribed appeared in the Aberdare Leader 110 years ago today.
“Bring the Names to the Light of Day.”
KEIR HARDIE AND WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.
A meeting was addressed by Mr Keir Hardie at Thomastown Park, Merthyr, on Sunday evening. Mr Hardie, referring to the Queenie Gerald case, said he wanted the facts to be known, and he wanted Liberals and Tories to face the facts, not as Liberals and Tories, but as fathers and mothers.
Some vigilance officers saw two young girls, with their hair down their backs, walking about Piccadilly. One of the girls told them that they were inmates of a house kept by rich men. The outcome was the arrest of the woman. Her books were seized and her letters, and the prosecuting attorney told the Court that these letters and books showed her rooms to be one of the worst dens in London, and patronised by rich men. There were letters asking for young girls to be procured. The woman herself pleaded not guilty.
When the case came on for trial she pleaded guilty, and she was sent to prison for three months in the second division. When the case first came before the Court it was said that these men, who Mr Hardie said had bribed her with hundreds of pounds to do their foul work, could be prosecuted for their deeds and actions. When the case came on a second time all that was dropped. The woman pleaded guilty much against her will.
“How much she was paid for pleading guilty may never be known,” said Mr Hardie, “but the whole thing looks like a plot to ward rich and titled men.” These girls were but the victims, he went on; the real criminals were those who paid big prices to demoralise them. If they wanted to suppress the white slave traffic there was no better way of doing it than by bringing into light of day all the names of the men. (Applause.)
– Aberdare Leader 16 August 1913
The poet Harri Webb was librarian at the Dowlais Library from 1954 until 1964 when he was appointed librarian at Mountain Ash. He was a prolific writer of poetry, prose and political commentary and he has been described as the ‘People’s Poet.’ He was active in politics with the local Labour Party when he became a friend of S.O. Davies. Disillusioned with the lack of support for the policy of self-government for Wales he left the Labour Party and rejoined Plaid Cymru in 1960.
James Keir Hardie, (1856-1915) was born in Lanarkshire. He worked as a miner and journalist before, in 1893, founding the Independent Labour Party.
Richard Christopher Wallhead (he later changed his middle name to Collingham) was born in London on 28 December 1869. He was educated at St Edward’s Elementary School at Romford before beginning his career as a clerk with the Great Eastern Railway. He then re-trained as a decorator and designer.
William Pritchard Morgan was born in Usk in 1844, son of William Morgan, an eminent Wesleyan preacher, who died when the young William was just eight years of age. Following his education, he was articled to Robert James Cathcart, a solicitor in Newport, but in 1867, following a ‘lively quarrel’ with Cathcart, Morgan left the firm, and indeed the country, emigrating to Queensland in Australia.
