What’s in the newly-launched 50th Anniversary volume of Merthyr Historian?
The answer is more than 450 pages about the history and communities and notable people linked with the lower end of our Borough.
It’s called Troedyrhiw Southward and Taff Bargoed. Glimpses of Histories and Communities.
This is what is in it …
FOREWORD: Lord Ted Rowlands
REGIONAL MAP
WELCOME TO OUR 50th ANNIVERSARY VOLUME
I. THE ROAD THAT RUNS THROUGH IT …
Clive Thomas, ‘History, geography and the construction of the new A470 from Abercynon to Abercanaid’. A photographic account with commentary
II. PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
Christine Trevett, ‘The Idiot of Cefn Fforest farm: learning disability, lunacy and the law in 17th century Merthyr parish’
Transcription, ‘Visit to the Merthyr Sewage Farm’ (1872,South Wales Daily News)
Huw Williams, ‘A North South divide and the Troedyrhiw Sewerage Farm: a case study in local history’
Bleddyn Hancock, ‘Fighting for breath, fighting for justice: how a small Welsh Trade Union took on the British government on behalf of tens of thousands of coal miners suffering and dying from chest disease’
III. WAR, COMMEMORATION AND PEACEMAKING
Eirlys Emeryet al., ‘Treharris remembers – Treharris yn cofio: a recent community project to record the past’
Gethin Matthews, ‘Honour to whom honour is due’: reports of First World War unveilings in the Merthyr Express, with special reference to those in the south of the Borough’
Craig Owen, ‘Born of Bedlinog – the man who united nations. The Rev. Gwilym Davies, world peacemaker’
IV. COMMUNITIES AND PROJECTS
Mansell Richards, ‘The Gateway to Merthyr Tydfil Heritage Plinths project’
David Collier, ‘The Saron graveyard project, Troedyrhiw’
V. LOCAL POLITICS AND WORKERS’ EDUCATION
Martin Wright, ‘Aspects of Socialism south of Merthyr and in Taff Bargoed in the 1890s: a window on Labour’s pre-history’
Daryl Leeworthy, ‘Workers’ Education in the lower County Borough: a brief history of an enduring idea’
VI. BALLADMONGERS AND MUSIC MAKERS
Stephen Brewer, ‘Idloes Owen, founder of Welsh National Opera’
Alun Francis, ‘Getting your timing right at Glantaff Stores – and what happened next’
Wyn James, ‘The Ballads of Troed -y-Rhiw’
VII. SPORT AND OUR COMMUNITIES
Alun Morgan, ‘1950s football rivalry between Merthyr Town and the Troedyrhiw-Treharris clubs’
Ivor Jones, ‘A community and its sport, a short history of Bedlinog Rugby Football Club’
VIII. THIS BOOK WOULD NOT BE COMPLETE WITHOUT …
John Holley and T.Fred Holley, ‘Troedyrhiw Horticulture 1876 –’
IX. OUR HISTORICAL SOCIETY: SOME HISTORY
Clive Thomas, ‘Before heritage began to matter. Only the beginnings’
The Society’s Archivist: an interview
CONTENTS OF Merthyr Historian vols. 1-31 (1974-2021)
BIOGRAPHIES OF CONTRIBUTORS
Volume 32 of the Merthyr Historian is priced at £15. If anyone would like to purchase a copy, please get in touch with me at merthyr.history@gmail.com and I will pass on all orders.
In 1820 a Sunday School was started in Troedyrhiw and held in various houses. In 1822 Mr & Mrs Robert Davies moved to the area and opened their house to the Sunday School. Mr Davies was a member of Pontmorlais Chapel, and Mrs Davies a member of Bethesda, Merthyr, so the school was jointly run by the Methodists and Independents. Within a few years the Sunday School moved to the house of Mr W Morgan, and became wholly run by the Independents.
Due to the success of the Sunday School it was decided to build a chapel. In 1833 a piece of land was bought from Sir Josiah John Guest, and a chapel was built at a cost of £409.5s.11d. The chapel opened on 10 February 1835.
For the first few years of its existence, Saron was still considered to be a branch of Bethesda Chapel, and the services were taken by Rev Methusalem Jones of Bethesda. When Rev Jones died, the link between Saron and Bethesda was broken and Saron became an independent church, and Rev David Thomas was ordained as Saron’s first minister on 19 November 1840.
Rev Thomas proved very successful, and under his leadership the congregation grew steadily. Sadly, however, his health began to decline and Rev Thomas died on 6 October 1843. The following year Rev William Morgan was inducted as Saron’s second minister. He would eventually serve as the minister at Saron for 32 years.
Under Rev Morgan the congregation flourished, and it soon became obvious that the chapel was too small for the ever growing congregation. It was decided that a new chapel was required, but they were denied land for it by Sir John Guest. However, they came to realise that Mr Wyndham Lewis was the true owner of the land, and he pledged land in his will with enough land for a graveyard. A new chapel was built at a cost of £700. In 1886 the vestry hall seating 250 was built at the rear of the chapel.
The interior of Saron in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive.
During Rev Morgan’s ministry, a few members from Saron started a Sunday School in Abercanaid. Such was the success of this venture that it was decided to build a chapel there which became Sion Chapel.
Although suffering from asthma, Rev William Morgan (left) served as the minister at Saron for 32 years until his death on 31 January 1876 at the age of 64. Such was the esteem and affection in which he was held, that the deacons of the chapel wrote to the Home Secretary for special permission to bury Rev Morgan under the pulpit of the chapel.
Saron closed in 1983 and was finally demolished in 1990.
In 2009, a group of volunteers from Troedyrhiw set up a group to rescue the graveyard of Saron Chapel. The graveyard is quite extensive; in March 1879, the Merthyr Burial Board had reported that there were 433 graves in the graveyard with room for 1299 interments. There had already been 1125 burials so there was room for a further 174.
The graveyard was in a terrible condition due to almost 30 years of neglect, and was a blot on the village of Troedyrhiw. The group, which called itself ‘Friends of Saron’, produced draft proposals to turn the dilapidated and overgrown graveyard into a community asset by creating a low maintenance Memorial and Wildlife Garden.
A fortuitous online discovery revealed that at least one native of Troedyrhiw had travelled as far as the San Francisco Bay area of California in the nineteenth century. An American calling himself ‘AlphaRoaming’ had written on his blog:- “I’m based in Silicon Valley and get out in the wilderness as often as possible. Back a few weeks ago I carpooled with a retired friend from San Jose up to Antioch, California to visit Northern California’s former coal mining district.’ He had posted this image of a headstone found in Rose Hill Cemetery in the Mount Diablo Coalfield, Contra Costa County, California.
The inscription states:-
MARY WIFE OF WILLIAM PROSSER DIED SEPT 24 1876 AGED 52 Y’RS NATIVE OF TROEDYRHIW, MERTHYR
From the late 1850’s until the turn of the century a low grade coal was extracted from the mines in this area and small towns, principally Nortonville, Somersville and Stewartville, grew up to house the workers and their families. The inhabitants were a diverse mix including significant numbers of Welsh and Italian immigrants. These settlements did not outlast the closure of the coal mines and the silica sand extraction industry that followed and their locations are now officially classified as ‘ghost towns’. Close to Somersville is the burial ground now known as Rose Hill Cemetery but formerly called the Protestant or ‘Welsh’ cemetery. This is where Mary Prosser was laid to rest in 1876 following a long period of ill health due, in all probability, to one of the diseases such as smallpox, typhoid, scarlet fever and diphtheria that were all too prevalent at the time.
Rose Hill Cemetery, Black Diamond Preserve, Contra Costa County, Ca.
It is believed that nearly 250 individuals are at Rose Hill but, sadly, the site was long neglected and subjected to vandalism including the theft of gravestones and ironwork so that now less than half of the original number of plots can be positively identified. Apart from Prosser other names with proven or likely Welsh origins found at Rose Hill include Davies, Davis, Edwards, Evans, Gething, Howell, Howells, Hughes, Humphreys, James, Jenkins, Jones, Morgan, Morris, Rees, Richards, Thomas, Vaughn, Waters and Williams.
Fortunately, this historic site and its artefacts are now being conserved and protected by the staff and volunteers of the Black Diamond Regional Preserve so that we and future generations can continue to appreciate it.
In 1979, Somersville gained fame as the site of the largest historical archaeology excavation ever done in the U.S. at the time. The Public Broadcasting System examined the project in a documentary series on archaeology, Odyssey: Other People’s Garbage.
The Rose Hill Cemetery aspect of this initiative seems to share many of the aims of the Saron Graveyard Project in Troedyrhiw but, unlike the latter, enjoys the advantages that come from being part of a larger well funded project.
Pursuing research into the background of Mary Prosser and how she came to live in the U.S. and finally die and be interred in this small part of California has revealed some additional information but has also thrown up a number of puzzles that are still to be unravelled. This is an item printed in the deaths column of a Welsh language newspaper some months after Mary’s death:-
From Y Gwladgarwr (The Patriot) 29 December 1876
This item seems to:-
confirm that Mary died on 24 September 1876 at 52 years of age, the wife of William Prosser;
reveal that she died in Somersville after suffering greatly with an illness for over a year;
confirm that Mary was born in Troedyrhiw, Merthyr;
state that she emigrated to America in 1848 from Brynmawr which was (at that time) in Brecknockshire (and is now within Blaenau Gwent);
state that by 1857 she was living in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania;
explain that her brother, Thomas Roberts, who lived in Reading, Pennsylvania, would like to contact Mr Prosser;
make it likely that she, her husband and their families were Welsh speaking;
make it likely that her maiden name was Roberts.
A search in available records for a marriage between a William Prosser and a Mary Roberts prior to the date of emigration (1848) yields only one likely result.
(Ancestry.com gives the same result but with an 1843 date)
This marriage took place in the parish of Llanelli/Llanelly on the edge of which is Brynmawr – the starting point for Mary (Roberts) Prosser (and possibly her husband?) to emigrate to the U.S.
If we could now link this Mary Roberts to Troedyrhiw we would have strong evidence that we have identified the person that lies buried in Rose Hill Cemetery. Thus far it has not been possible to do this but we are hopeful that ongoing enquiries will eventually be successful.
SOME CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
South Africa, British Columbia and California are all many thousands of miles from Troedyrhiw. To travel from the village to any of these places by modern means of transport would normally be a quite straightforward if rather tiring venture but undertaking the same journeys in the nineteenth century would have been full of potential hazards. That our forebears were willing to take such risks, whether to fulfil their duty or in pursuit of better lives, and to put up with all of the hardships that they would undoubtedly face upon arrival at their destination is testament to their determination and resilience and leaves us much to admire.
John W. Williams, as we have seen, suffered a fatal accident while mining for gold in British Columbia. He must have been part of the early Welsh emigration to Canada attracted by the Cariboo Gold Rush that began in 1858. As with other miners that suffered similar fates he is likely to have been buried near to the place where he died with no permanent marker showing the location of his final resting place. It appears from census records that, sadly, he had left a wife and two children behind in Troedyrhiw while he went away to seek his fortune.
Evan J. Williams found himself to be embroiled in what, at the time, was the largest deployment of British troops since the Crimean War. Between 1899 and 1902 half a million soldiers had been sent to take part in the conflict in South Africa and amongst the 55,000 British casualties there were some 22,000 fatalities of which 12,000, including Trooper Williams, had died from diseases such as dysentery, typhoid and intestinal infections.
As many as 2 million Americans can trace their ancestry back to Welsh born immigrants. In the middle of the nineteenth century many were recruited, because of their skills, to work in the coal mines and ironworks of Pennsylvania. This probably explains why Mary Prosser and her husband William came to Tamaqua from Brynmawr in 1857. We don’t know why the couple later decided to move to California. It could have been that William’s presumed skills as a ‘hard-rock’ miner were in demand in the goldfields at that time and, when this didn’t work out, he turned to the type of work that he knew best in the recently opened coal mines of the Mount Diablo area. He and his wife could not have suspected that the harsh realities of life in an environment where infectious diseases were rife and medical care was rudimentary or non existent were to prove so costly for Mary.
How did our forebears live their lives in their home communities and what happened to those that moved away, sometimes to far distant lands, in search of better lives or because duty called them for military service?
A small but dedicated group have been working for some years to rescue the graveyard of the former Saron Welsh Independent Chapel in Troedyrhiw from the effects of many years of neglect.
Saron Chapel, Troedyrhiw
From an early stage in this project members of the team began to photograph the surviving headstones and monuments and to transcribe the memorial inscriptions. These, together with memorial type, language, lettering and symbolism revealed interesting information about our forebears (those buried and the people that buried them) and their lives over a period running from the 1830’s up to the early 1980’s. Such findings combined with the results of further research provide details for particular individuals and families including names, dates and places of birth, dates of death together with ages and causes, relationships, occupations, economic status, military service, tragic events, religion, cultural and leisure pursuits.
An intriguing aspect of these enquiries has been the discovery of a significant number of Troedyrhiw people who once emigrated or were deployed to places far from home. Quite a few of these were never to return. The following three examples have been chosen to illustrate this.
JOHN W. WILLIAMS
It is likely that John Williams, a native of Troedyrhiw, having honed his mining skills in local collieries, decided to emigrate to the goldfields of Canada to ‘seek his fortune’. The inscriptions on the headstone of his family grave in Saron Graveyard, Troedyrhiw can now only be read with difficulty. They include the following:-
IN MEMORY OF
JOHN W. WILLIAMS
LATE OF TROEDYRHIW
HE DIED MAY 3 1877
AT 52 YEARS OLD
BURIED AT OHANACAN BRITISH COLUMBIA
‘Ohanacan’ would appear to be a reference to the Okanagan region of British Columbia. A Canadian newspaper published 18 May 1877 refers to a miner named Williams who was killed at the beginning of May 1877 during gold mining activities at a place called Mission Creek.
Newspaper record of the death of a miner called Williams
The above information is supported by a report from British Columbia’s Gold Commissioner, Charles A. Vernon for the previous year (1876). This records the gold mining activities at Mission Creek and the involvement of an experienced miner called John Williams who had spent time in the Cariboo region of British Columbia before coming to the Okanagan. Charles Vernon wrote:-
“Considerable mining and prospecting has also been done on Mission Creek this fall, with a fair average yield of gold. John Williams, an old Caribooite, has run a tunnel into the hill from the creek some 60 feet, and found a good prospect.”
EVAN J. WILLIAMS
This young Troedyrhiw man died in South Africa during the 2nd Boer War (Anglo – Boer War), 1899-1902. An inscription on the headstone of his family grave in Saron Graveyard reads:-
ALSO OF EVAN J. WILLIAMS, SON OF THE ABOVE WHO DIED IN SOUTH AFRICA MAY 20, 1901. AGED 27 YEARS
The death of Trooper Williams is recorded, along with those of his comrades from the Borough who also perished during this conflict, on the Boer War Memorial in Thomastown Park in Merthyr.
The results of an enquiry made of the South Africa War Graves Project include the following record and a photograph of this soldier’s grave marker:-
“No 278748, Trooper E. J. Williams, 4th Company, Imperial Yeomanry, died of disease on 20 May 1901 and buried in Harrismith Cemetery” (note that the date given here is slightly different from that recorded elsewhere).
Over the years, Merthyr has been home to over 120 chapels, and they became one of the mainstays of life in the town. Every month I would like to post a history of a different chapel. Let’s start with one of the most famous of Merthyr’s chapels – Bethesda Welsh Independent Chapel.
Bethesda Chapel
In 1807, the minister at Zoar Chapel, Rev Daniel Lewis, embarked on a visit to London and other large towns to solicit gifts of money from sympathetic benefactors to help clear the debts at Zoar Chapel.
Even though this was the custom at the time, some members of the congregation took exception to the trip and to the expenses incurred by the minister, and instigated an investigation into the affair by senior ministers from surrounding areas. When the investigation exonerated Rev Lewis, his accusers, unhappy with the outcome, left to start their own church.
The congregation originally met in an upstairs room of a smithy near the spot where Salem Chapel now stands in Newcastle Street, and called it Philadelphia. After two years larger premises were necessary and the congregation moved to another blacksmith’s forge between Zoar Chapel and the Morlais Brook and called it Beth-haran.
It was while they were at Beth-haran that the congregation extended an invitation to Rev Methusalem Jones to come and preach at their small meeting. He eventually became their minister and the congregation decided to build their own chapel. They obtained a piece of land on a lease from Mr W Morgan, Grawen, for £5 per annum rent. They built the chapel at the start of 1811, and Rev Jones licensed it at Llandaff court on 23 July 1811.
Under the guidance of Methusalem Jones the congregation had grown from 90 to almost 300, thus a larger chapel was needed, and a new chapel was built in 1829 at a cost of £1,002. Whilst under Rev Methusalem Jones’ ministry, Bethesda became mother church to many other chapels including:- Bethania, Dowlais; Saron, Troedyrhiw; Ebenezer, Cefn Coed; Salem, Heolgerrig. Rev Methusalem Jones continued to minister to the congregation at Bethesda until his death on 15 January 1839 at the age of 71.
Following Rev Jones death, Rev Daniel Jones was invited to become Bethesda’s minister in 1840. At the time that Daniel Jones became minister, there was an influx of people coming to Merthyr from Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire seeking work in the various iron works; as Daniel Jones was known in those counties, a large number of the people coming to Merthyr started going to Bethesda Chapel thus greatly increasing the congregation.
Two years after becoming the minister however, Rev Jones had to have his right arm amputated, but because of the support and kindness he received from the congregation, he made a swift recovery and continued to preach at Bethesda until he left in 1855 to join the Anglican church.
It was at this time that the world famous composer Dr Joseph Parry was a member of Bethesda Chapel. He attended the chapel with his family until he emigrated to America in 1854. Indeed, Dr Parry’s mother, Elizabeth, had been working for Rev Methusalem Jones as a maid in her youth, and moved with him to Merthyr when he became the minister at Bethesda.
Following Daniel Jones departure, Bethesda was without a minister for three years, but the cause continued to flourish, and it was at this time that a number of members of Bethesda started a new cause at Gellideg Chapel.
By the late 1870’s it was decided to build a larger and more comfortable chapel, and on 24 June 1880 the foundation stone was laid by Mrs W T Crawshay, wife of William Crawshay the owner of Cyfarthfa Ironworks. The architect was Mr John Williams of Merthyr and the builder was Mr John Francis Davies of Dowlais. The chapel was completed in 1881 at a cost of £1,200.
Following its closure due to a diminishing congregation in 1976, Bethesda Chapel was used as an arts centre for several years. The building then began to fall into dereliction until it was finally decided to demolish the building in 1995.
The site of Bethesda Chapel has now been landscaped and a mosaic by Oliver Budd based on a painting by the renowned local artist and historian Mr Dewi Bowen has been erected as a memorial to the chapel.
Although suffering from asthma, Rev William Morgan (left) served as the minister at Saron for 32 years until his death on 31 January 1876 at the age of 64. Such was the esteem and affection in which he was held, that the deacons of the chapel wrote to the Home Secretary for special permission to bury Rev Morgan under the pulpit of the chapel.
JOHN W. WILLIAMS
EVAN J. WILLIAMS
