Month: July 2025

The Growth of Football in Merthyr Tydfil – part 4

Transcribed by Phil Sweet

These articles which appeared in three consecutive editions of the Merthyr Express in March 1921 are Harvey Boots’ own reminiscences of the development of three football codes in the town up to that date.  

ARTICLE 2 MERTHYR EXPRESS 12TH MARCH 1921 (continued)

THE GROWTH OF FOOTBALL IN MERTHYR

(By Harvey Boots)

Meanwhile we of the Rugby Club were left in a quandary. The membership of the team that had been doing so well for us the previous season, and had raised the status of the club to a position it had never attained before, went over to the new game. A few remained true to the amateur cause, but we were left with little more than a skeleton of a team. Worse still all our supporters left us; our gates dwindled down to zero; while the other code grew in proportion. However, we kept pegging away, but things were going from bad to worse, our exchequer was dry, and we were owing the bank a bit. We continued for two or three seasons and the struggle was a long and costly one. To give an idea of how wealthy (?) we were becoming, on one occasion we played Cross Keys (a club now at the prominent head of all Welsh Clubs) to a gate of 17s 6d. On this princely sum we had to pay the return visit to Cross Keys. We were not forgotten entirely by the tradespeople of Merthyr at this period.

Several came to our aid, and one, in particular, rendered us very valuable financial assistance. I refer to Mr. J. T. Harrap. We had only to state our case and he was ever-ready to come to our help, but this sort of thing couldn’t go on indefinitely. We were in arrears with our rent, and when making application for Penydarren Park for what was eventually the last time, we found an offer had been made on behalf of the other club at a rental of £200, which was just double what we were charged. This, I am happy to say was turned down by the Athletic Club, although we, at this time, owed £100 for rent and no prospects of paying it.

We felt at this time that since we had been engaged for a number of years in fighting the battles of Welsh Rugby, it was time the parent body came to our assistance, and so began the beginning of the end. I went to Cardiff to interview them on innumerable occasions; as did W. T. Jones and E. Biddle, but all to no purpose. Although they had some thousands of pounds on deposit, they evidently thought it was a real pleasure for us, as private individuals, to keep on shelling out the money to keep the game alive. We wanted to book the Park again for the coming season, and although we owed the Athletic Club £100, they very kindly offered to forgo this, and write it off as a bad debt if the Welsh Union became guarantors for the rent in future. Down we go again to meet these gentlemen with this new proposal. “We don’t want financial assistance,” we told them. “We shall pull through if you will become guarantors for the rent.” Did they? No, bless you! With an ostrich-like wisdom they turned us down again, popped their heads back in the nice warm sand, and went to sleep. These valleys were then teeming with Rugby clubs. To-day there is only one between here and Cardiff – I refer to Pontypridd. All else is Soccer. I have always maintained – and always shall – that this particularly wise move on the part of the Welsh Union paved the way for what is now the popular game – Association.

Well, here were, we with a ground leased for a number of years (16), with nearly £4,000 spent on its improvement, and no tenant for it. The Athletic Club then held what was easily the most momentous meeting in its history and at this meeting we decided to form an Association Club. Believe me, Mr. Editor, had we known the troubles and pitfalls ahead I very much doubt if we would have decided as we did. However, with quick dispatch and unbounded enthusiasm, Dr Llewellyn Jones, Mr. H. C. Davies, with Mr. W. T. Jones as secretary, went up to London to interview the Management Committee of the Southern League. After viewing our ground and few other preliminaries, we were duly accepted as a member, and thus became the first Welsh Club in the Southern League. Our troubles had really only now commenced.

We had decided to introduce a new code into a district where previously, as I remarked before, an Association ball was rarely, if ever, seen. We were now in the Second Division of the Southern League, and as we were the only Welsh Club our fixtures in this section were all with English clubs. We advertised for players in the “Athletic News,” and, believe me, we got them. Our knowledge of the new game was not quite up to date, and I think some of the players who applied for places in the new combination must have been aware of the fact. Some of them came clean shaven, and with close-cropped heads, vowed they had played for Aston Villa and Newcastle, and had “scored the goal that had won the ‘Cup,’” which statement, if true, should have entitled them to whiskers of patriarchal dimensions and old age pensions.

All these things (and others) were sent to try us, but we were learning our lesson. The Northern Union Club were still going, but there were evident signs of a falling off here. Some of the South Wales clubs had already closed down for want of support, and the local club were beginning to feel the drain of those long trips to the North every other week. While they retained the popular fancy, a few spectators used to honour us with a visit just to see how the new-fangled game was going. Indeed, our gates were a thing of beauty, but not a joy for ever. They consisted of the players’ wives or sweethearts, the directors and a few friends, and a number of small boys who had managed to get in without paying. And there I think you have it. We didn’t want a bag of any sort to take the cash to the bank. I believe Mr. W. T. Jones used to put it in his waistcoat pocket to bank on Monday. It was only last week that Mr. John Evans (Royal Stores) mentioned that he remembered looking in on his way to the other game and was surprised to find as many players as spectators Many of my readers make take this cum grano salis, but I can assure them it was very near the mark.

To be continued…..

Soup Kitchens in Merthyr, 1878

by Jill Morgan

Walter J. Lewis (left), born in Salt Lake City, Utah, of Welsh parents, was a missionary in South Wales for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from 1877 to 1879. He kept a detailed journal of his missionary activities, including meetings attended, church members visited, and letters written and received. But he also includes reference to community and social events and conditions. This is an entry from February 1878, when he was temporarily in Merthyr. The spelling has not been changed from the original.

Merthyr, Tydfil, Feb, 5, 1878.

At two O’Clock Bro. Parry & I visited the soup kitchen in Drill Hall where two thousand children are fed once a day with soup. This is the result of a late investigation by Griffith Richards M. P. from Merthyr and other leading Gentlemen of the Town, of the circumstances of the poor and distressed of the place. They found hundreds in a very destitute and almost perishing condition owing to the extreme dullness of the times.

 Releif Societies have been organized throughout the coal and Iron Districts who are solicisiting aid from every quarter for the purpose of distributing clothing and food to the most distressed of the place. Between 12 and 3 O’Clock the streets are thronged with half starved scantly clad children of both sexes from infants up to fifteen years old, with their bowls and spoons under their arms, making there way to the soup kitchen where many probably get the first meal in the day.

Then very prosaically, he returns to recording missionary activity:

We held meeting in the evenng in Bro. Owens house Pentrebach, after which we walked over the Mountain to Cwmbach, reaching it about midnight.

My Dad Makes Sweets

by Tiffèny Davies (née Bray)

When I first started school, my teacher told my mother that I was the only one in my class who knew what their father did for a living!  “My Dad makes sweets!”, I’d said.   My mother told her, it was because I saw him at work, as the factory was in an old water mill, just off Merthyr Tydfil High Street, across the garden from our house and we would often pop in to see him on our way back from town.

My father at work in the factory

Frederick William Bray, my Great Grandfather, who established F W Bray and Sons, started his business in Glyn Terrace, Merthyr Tydfil.

F W Bray & Sons shop at Glyn Terrace. Photo courtesy of the Alan George archive

Frederick had a sweet factory at the back of the house and he would load his horse drawn cart full of jars of sweets and deliver to market traders as well as running his own stall in Aberdare market. In 1904, Frederick married, Mary Ann Vining, the daughter of a china merchant based on Pontmorlais who also had large china stalls in Merthyr and Dowlais Markets as well as a shop on Pontmorlais.

In 1934, Frederick and Mary Ann moved into Pontmorlais and established a sweet shop, continuing to make sweets in a building at the bottom of Old Mill Lane and eventually taking over the Old Mill that had, until then, been used by the Vining family in which to store China. The Vinings had bought the Old Mill in 1922 after the Millers failed to return from the First World War.

Frederick and Mary Ann had three children, Thomas, Sydney and Phyllis. Both sons joined the family business, becoming Master Sugar Boilers and also helped to deliver to all the small retail shops in the surrounding valleys.

During the Second World War my Grandfather, Thomas, served as a cook with the Royal Engineers while Sydney and Phyllis worked in the local munitions factory, which meant that there was little time for sweet making. I am told, that in order to keep up the supply of sweets, Mary Ann contacted the local Member of Parliament, S O Davies, on two occasions, to request Thomas’ return from the frontline. It is said that S O Davies would take a bag of sweets up to Parliament, to Winston Churchill’s War Cabinet.

F W Bray & Sons shop in Pontmorlais in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

In 1937, Thomas married Anne Berry Powell who had been working as a Night Sister in the General Hospital. After the war, they lived above their own sweet shop at Park Place, Merthyr Tydfil. While Thomas travelled the valleys, visiting the small shops, delivering and taking orders, Sydney made sweets.

When I was born in March 1963, my Father, Fred Bray, was already working in the well-established sweet making business which employed around 25 people; in the factory, the shop on Pontmorlais, market stalls in Merthyr and Aberdare as well as a newsagents on Glebeland Street, Merthyr.

F W Bray & Sons stall at Merthyr Market. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

They manufactured a range of hard boiled sweets, as well as whole sale and retail of ranges from across the confectionary spectrum. Sales representatives from brands such as Cadbury’s, Taveners, Rountrees, Walkers, Milady and even the man from Mars, were frequent visitors. To a young child, it was really exciting to be around when a travelling sales representative was visiting, they always had a case full of colourful delights out of which I might be handed a sample to try.  Sometimes there would even be promotional toys – I acquired a clockwork dalek, cuddly chipmunk (that advertised chipmunk crisps) and even a digital watch that came with Bazooka bubblegum!   I remember being closely watched as I sampled a packet of popping and fizzing, space dust which I thought was great fun and, on another occasion, Uncle Sid handed me a packet of Wotsits, that he’d been sampling, before dashing to the sink to wash out the gooey mess from his false teeth!  Needless to say, the Wotsits were a hit with the kid, and the sales representative got an order!

It would be all hands on deck to unload deliveries from the lorries of large companies and stock our warehouse ready for distribution to shops across the valleys. Our adverts read “Home Made Sweets with Glucose – Good For You!”  We had a burgundy coloured Commer van, emblazoned with the family name – F W Bray and Sons – kitted out with shelves to hold the glass sweet jars and boxes, that my Grandfather, Thomas, used for deliveries to all the small shops, all over the valleys.   As a child, it was always a novelty to sit, up front, with him in the “big van”.

The advent of the supermarket eventually meant that confectionary was being sold cheaper by them than we could buy directly from the manufacturer and, as a result the wholesale of other brands dwindled. Focus shifted to the Bray’s lines and links with the National Museum of Wales, doing sweet making demonstrations at events and fairs.

My mother and father demonstrating sweet making

As I grew older, I have memories of helping in the factory, washing jars, pasting labels, mixing the Braymix and adding colour and flavour to the sherbet. During one school summer holiday, I even operated the cut and twist wrapping machine. I sat for hours, putting sweets into holes and watching them go round, the machine picking up our branded cellophane, chopping it and spinning pincers twisting the ends before dropping them down a shute into a tray. I must say, the novelty quickly wore off!

Although, my Father told us to break away from the business, we could not help but be drawn in and we did get involved, especially when it was all hands on deck! I nagged my Father to allow me to work as Saturday staff and my sister, Fiona and I worked in the Merthyr Market Stall, my brother, Jason, who had a morning paper round, occasionally helped out in the shop on Pontmorlais.

Until 1994, when my Parents retired, they ran the business together, changing the structure to sweet making and travelling to events in order to do demonstrations, at mostly Welsh Heritage Sites. The wholesale business, shops and stalls were now gone. The watermill that used to store china, and then became a sweet factory, is now a garage.

My parents Fred and Pam Bray

My father always said that the sweet making business would end with him and advice was to break away. On the 8 of September 2024 at my brother, Jason’s installation as Dean of Llandaff Cathedral, I remember those words, and how things have worked out. The business did end when my father retired in 1994 and he handed machinery to St Fagans Welsh National Museum of History and his recipes, glass jars and labels handed to relatives in Bray’s of Cardiff. I sometimes see some of our lines of hard boiled sweets in the supermarket and Bray’s sweets were sold at St Fagans from the original glass jars with our labels.

Me at St Fagans

Merthyr’s Lost Landmarks: High Street Railway Station

by Carolyn Jacob

Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

At one time most immigrants to Merthyr Tydfil simply walked unless they got a lift on a farm cart, but the few roads were poor. The early Iron-master, Anthony Bacon, built the first direct road between Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff. The transportation of bulky iron products to the sea ports led to the building of the Glamorganshire Canal. The locomotives and trains of no less than six railway companies ran into the Merthyr station which had the title of ‘High Street’ rather than the more common ‘Central’.

The Taff Vale Railway had been first to arrive in Merthyr with a line from Cardiff and Pontypridd to their Plymouth Street station in 1841, followed by the Vale of Neath in 1853, soon to be taken over by the Great Western. These were followed by the Brecon & Merthyr whose operations stretched down to Newport and the London & North Western with their line from Abergavenny. The final arrivals were the Rhymney Railway with access provided from Quakers Yard by their joint line with the GWR, while the Cambrian Railway had running powers through to Merthyr. In 1922 all were absorbed by the GWR.

Courtesy of the Alan George Archive

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was involved in railway projects here.  ‘The railway sets you down in Merthyr at precisely the quaintest centre of the old town. There is an ancient atmosphere pervading‘, wrote Wirt Sikes, an American, in 1880.  In 1856 Prince Louis Bonaparte arrived at the High Street station. On 1 April 1944, the King and Queen and Princess Elizabeth took the Royal train from the High Street station. Thousands of rails were manufactured here and the Dowlais Works sold rails to Russia, America and India. However, a hundred years ago the local Sunday trip or holiday was only to Pontsarn or the Brecon Beacons. During the Second World War many evacuees arrived by train. One evacuee wrote in a letter home; ‘we watch the trains arriving into Merthyr Tydfil railway station from the top of the slag heaps’.

In its heyday, the striking timbered roof, five operational platforms and more than 80 members of staff, ensured Merthyr High Street Station was in a class of its own. It had excellent facilities. There were refreshment rooms where first-class passengers could buy breakfast for 1s 6d. In 1945 the ticket boxes were open continuously except for 1.45pm to 2.45pm on Sundays and 12.30am to 4am on Mondays. There were toilets and brightly coloured advertisements for products such as Bovril and Venos’ Cough Cure. The waiting rooms were a pleasure to sit in, with large coal fires and plenty of seats. The station was kept litter-free and clean. High Street station cleaner Margaret Pritchard was so conscientious keeping the Merthyr Station spick and span that she accidentally polished over important finger prints after a robbery.

Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive

In the 1960s young fighters trained by former boxer Eddie Thomas would weigh on the scales in the goods depot at the station, the most accurate scales in town. The station a centre for local sporting life, filled with the sound of cooing racing pigeons and the raucous barking of whippet dogs. In 1953, after 98 years, the roof designed by Brunel was removed and in 1987 the fire-ravaged goods shed at the station was demolished.

In the 1960s Merthyr lost nearly all its passenger services except the Taff Vale route to Cardiff. In 1971 and new station building was erected but it was a shadow of its former self. The official opening of the present new Merthyr Railway Station was February 1996 by Councillor Ray Thomas. The new station which cost £500,000 to build was funded by the sale of the old station just 120 metres away.

My Street – part 4

by Barrie Jones

Chapter Three

British Iron and Steel Federation (B. I. S. F) Steel Framed Houses

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Britain’s extensive post-war reconstruction programme faced a shortage of materials and skilled tradesmen, particularly carpenters and bricklayers. To overcome this, use was made of prefabricated materials, utilising factory production methods previously geared for the war effort. Construction techniques, in part, could be undertaken by an un-skilled workforce, and at its height the estate engaged over two-hundred and eighty workmen, mostly un-skilled, on the site’s construction.

The housing estate’s prefabricated houses, known by the locals as the `pre-fabs’ were mistakenly thought by many people to be for temporary use only. In addition to Ysgubornewydd, the Council embarked on a programme of construction of prefabricated properties on a large scale at Galon Uchaf (150 houses).  Other smaller groups were constructed on such sites as; Canonbie (24), Brickfield Crescent (16), Cae Mari Dwn (26), Jones Terrace (16), Taff Glen View (22) and Queens Road (4). Prior to the construction of B.I.S.F. units the Council had constructed numerous Arcon prefabricated bungalows at Ynysfach, Rhydfach and Merthyr Vale.

In 1944 various non-traditional house construction systems were assessed by the Interdepartmental Committee on Housing (Burt Committee) to identify the most promising for immediate development. The B.I.S.F. steel framed house was one of those selected and two prototype houses ‘A’ and ‘B’ were erected at Northolt, Middlesex. Only type ‘A’ appears to have gone into production and a programme was planned for the construction of over 30,000 three-bedroom semi-detached houses in England and Wales, while over 4,000 were planned for Scotland. The programme was later extended to include 1,048 terraced properties, these merely being extensions of a pair of dwellings.

The type ‘A’ frame was fabricated from rolled steel sections with roof trusses of rolled steel or tubular sections. Of the claddings available, render on mesh for the ground floor and profiled steel sheet on the upper storey appears to have been adopted almost universally. The vertical ribs of the original cladding to the upper storey are a prominent feature that identifies B.I.S.F. houses. The roof was clad with profiled asbestos cement sheeting.

B.I.S.F. dwellings were usually built as two-storey semi-detached houses and the internal lining is of 3/8-inch plasterboard fixed to 2 x 1 inch timber framing secured to the steel framework. A glass fibre quilt 1 inch thick is sandwiched between the steel framework and timber framing.

Profiles of a typical BISF house

A typical ‘prefab’; number thirty-seven, Wheatley Place, had the following layout and facilities:

Front door leading into the hallway with doors leading to the front room and kitchen, under the stairs near to the kitchen door was a wide cupboard housing the gas and electricity meters. Under the stairs there was space large enough for my mother to keep her Singer sewing machine with its metal treadle.

The kitchen was supplied with a gas cooker and fitted units; alongside the wall separated by the hall door were two pairs of full-length metal storage cupboards. Between the cooker space in the corner of the kitchen and the washbasin was a narrow cupboard in front of the boxed in soil pipe from the upstairs bathroom. This cupboard was used by my mother to store dusters, shoe polishes etc. Above the washbasin was the kitchen window that looked out onto the back garden. Under the washbasin was a gas tap that could be connected to a gas heated water boiler; the boiler was a galvanised cylindrical tub that was wheeled out on washdays from its place under the kitchen washbasin.

Leading from the kitchen was the dining room with a large window looking out onto the rear garden. From the dining room double doors lead into the front room that was dominated by a large almost full-length window looking out onto the front garden, all the windows in the house were metal framed with metal fittings. The front room was heated by a coal fire that backed on to the wall separating the dining room from the front room. The fireplace was dominated by a large mantelpiece that extended around the chimney flue and was made of pre-cast concrete. The fire could be lit with a gas jet fitted into the front grate instead of the traditional gas poker. This assisted the work of lighting the fire but to save gas, most people still relied on wood and paper and the trusty blower. Lighting the fire had its dangers, on one occasion when lighting the gas, blowback left me minus eyebrows and eyelashes. The fire served as the only direct room heating but with the aid of a small back boiler it heated the household hot water tank and three small radiators. These were narrow versions of the traditional heavy cast-iron radiators, one in the dining room and one each in the two larger bedrooms.

Upstairs on the landing was a window on the side of the house looking over the single storey side extension. Leading from the landing were three bedrooms and a bathroom. The bathroom situated at the rear and over the kitchen had a W.C., washbasin, and traditional white cast-iron bath. The large front bedroom housed the airing cupboard with hot water tank, situated alongside the chimney flue. It would not take much hot water use before this went cold and re-heating the water would take ages, most people eventually had electric immersion heaters fitted to boost the hot water. The front and back bedrooms were separated from each other by fitted wardrobes, a double in the front and a single in the back. These filled the space between the airing cupboard and the party wall. The smallest bedroom, the box room, was in the front over the hallway, to maximise space a fitted dressing table with two small drawers was built over the slope created by the rise of the stairs.

The side entrance into the house, known as the “back door”, leads into the kitchen through a porch. The porch was formed by the space made in a single-story side extension of the house between an external WC. and the storage shed. Part of this shed was a sectioned-off coalbunker; coal could be gathered from the porch by means of a small hatch at floor level. Unless the bunker was full, which would be very rare, collecting coal from the hatch was difficult and this hatch was rarely used and therefore the coal bucket was filled by trips into the dark shed. Over the years this large bunker would fill up with small coal and hunting for suitable coal lumps could take some time.

B.I.S.F. houses were innovative also in the provision of electricity; the Housing Manager reported to the Housing Committee in January 1948 that new patent electric wall sockets were fitted to the houses. These required plugs that had an additional third leg, a safety device in the form of a fuse, which was screwed into the plug. New tenants were not prepared for this innovation and the Housing Manager obtained permission to purchase one gross of the fuses and 500 plugs for sale to incoming tenants.

By the mid-1960s the external cladding of the ‘prefabs’ were becoming shabby and showing signs of rust. To counter this the Council embarked on a programme of ‘pebble dashing’ the cladding. This involved applying an adhesive to the metal and throwing small grain multi-coloured ‘pebbles’ over the adhesive. Later in the 1980s a renovation programme was conducted, this included replacing the asbestos roofing and improving the houses energy efficiency through window replacement and central heating installation.

From the 1980s council tenants could purchase their house under the Right to Buy (RTB) legislation, a favourable option as they would receive a significant reduction on the property’s value based on the length of their council tenancies. It was wise to delay purchase until the property was renovated. Several council tenants accepted this offer, and tenants continue to do so over the following decades. In total eight properties in Wheatley Place have been purchased under RTB, the three concrete houses and five ‘prefabs.’ The downside to RTB is that BISF properties are classed as of non-traditional construction and consequently mortgages are more difficult to secure for their purchase. Which may explain why fourteen properties in the street remain social housing after seventy-five years.

To be continued…..

Calling all historians

Hello everyone.

Yet again, it is time for my bi-annual appeal to all budding historians out there – please send in your articles.

As you know I am always looking for fresh ideas for this blog, so if anyone feels they would like to contribute a piece – no matter how short, any submissions will be gratefully received.

There have been some articles on the blog this year written by ‘new’ authors (to this blog), and have been about fascinating and vastly different subjects – subjects that I would probably have never written about – that’s what keeps this blog fresh, so why don’t you have a go at writing something? Also, it is getting more difficult to come up with interesting articles to keep the blog going, so anything you could contribute will make a difference.

Also, I have received a few of complaints that the blog doesn’t cover certain subjects or areas, or that some subjects are over-emphasised – well, if there are things that you would like to see covered, please write something.

Everyone is welcome to contribute – whether you are an established historian or someone with a passion for local history who has never written something before.

Please send me your articles – HELP KEEP THIS BLOG GOING. Without your input the blog could run out of steam.

Thank you

A New Fire Station

The article transcribed below appeared in the Merthyr Express 100 years ago today.

MERTHYR’S FIRE STATION.

OPENING OF NEW BUILDING AND MEDICAL COMFORTS DEPOT.

On Thursday afternoon the Mayor of Merthyr (Coun. F. A. Phillips), in the presence of a large number of local ladies and gentlemen, opened the new Fire Station for the Borough, which is erected on a site adjoining the Central Police Station, the cost of which was about £1,800. Accommodation is provided on the ground floor for the fire engine and the police ambulance car. The first floor will be used as a recreation room, and this has been equipped and furnished out of the Police Athletic Club’s funds. The third floor has been fitted up as a medical comforts’ department under the Merthyr Centre of the St. John Ambulance Brigade.

A number of the nurses were present wearing their uniform, under the supervision of Mr. D. M. Davies, the Chief Constable, who is also the Commissioner the Merthyr Centre of the St. Johns Ambulance Brigade; Miss Williams, the supt.; and Mr. Harry Jones the corps supt. The Mayor, who was accompanied by Mrs. Phillips, the Mayoress, was supported by members and officials of the Corporation; Lady Herbert Lewis, O.B.E. of Cardiff, who later opened the medical comforts’ department; and Miss Herman, of the Priory of Wales.

A large and interested crowd of spectators assembled outside the fire station, and before the opening ceremony the Brigade gave a demonstration of how promptly they can act in case of a call being received. The fire bell sounded, the large doors swung open, and the motor fire engine, fully manned, darted out of the station and stopped just outside the entrance to the market. At the same moment another door was opened, and the ambulance car, fully manned, left the other department, and made its way to High Street. Inspector J. Lamb was in charge of the Brigade.

The Chief Constable was Master of Ceremonies and after this interesting demonstration he asked Mr. Edmund Rees (the architect) to present the Mayor with a miniature fireman’s axe, and the key with which to formally open the building. The Mayor unlocked the large doors amid applause, and Ald. W. Burr, the Deputy-Mayor, unlocked the doors of the ambulance entrance amid a similar demonstration.

The Mayor said: I congratulate the Architect (Mr. T. Edmund Rees) and all others concerned for this beautiful structure just opened. For many years this part of the building has not been used owing to its unsuitability for any purpose. The ground upon which it stands is freehold, and is the property of the Corporation. This beautiful fire station will greatly add to the efficiency of the Fire Brigade, being attached to the Police Station itself, and only a few yards from the firemen’s bedrooms. Heating apparatus will be fixed later, and a certain temperature can be maintained throughout the winter, whereas now in the fire station just vacated it is almost a matter of impossibility to start a horse-power engine during the winter months owing to the low temperature, with a consequent loss of valuable time; and the most valuable time at a fire is the first few minutes alter the discovery the outbreak. (Applause)

The Chief Constable’ s two pretty little daughters then presented beautiful bouquets to Lady Lewis and the Mayoress.

Inside the building the Mayoress (Mrs. Phillips) was presented by P.S. Edward Jones, Chairman of the Police Athletic Club, with a pair of silver scissors with which to cut a ribbon at the foot of the staircase leading to the recreation room, where she subsequently unveiled a framed memorial to six policemen who were killed in the Great War. The Memorial was dedicated by the Rector of Merthyr, the Rev. J. Richards-Pugh, R.D., and the “Last Post” was sounded by P.C. F. Standard, one of four brothers who are members of the Merthyr Force, and who went through the war.

The Mayor said: As Chairman of the Watch Committee, I are very pleased that at long lost the members of our Police Force have a club room for their own use. Hitherto the only room at their disposal was the messroom downstairs, which will only hold about a dozen. This messroom was used for breakfast room, dining room, supper room, etc.; and all games and meetings of necessity had to be held there. In appreciation of the provision of this club room the Police themselves purchased this billiard table, the beautiful and appropriate pictures which you see on that wall; the War Memorial in memory of their comrades who fell in the Great War; and the clock—costing altogether £103.0s.6d. this beautiful memorial was executed throughout by Mr. E. A. Gilbert, of Rhymney, a postman; and I must congratulate him on his work. Mr. Gilbert is well known throughout the lend, and especially at the Royal Academy, where he was awarded prizes for similar work; also at National Eisteddfodau. The names you see on it are those of highly respected officers of our Police Force. Four of them belonged to the “Old Contemptibles”, viz.: Tom Evans, Stubbs, Leonard and Clarke. Lovis and Morgan were volunteers, and they joined the Army in 1915. It may interest you to know that 47 members of our Police Force served during the Great War, leaving 40 behind to “keep the home fires burning.” The Police. out of their own feeds, gave the dependents of the six men who did not come back £50 each. (Applause.)

Lady Lewis then formally opened the medical comforts’ department, and was presented with a silver key by Miss Williams, the Lady supt. of the Nursing Division.

Among others who took part in the proceedings were Ald. F. Pedler, Councillors Isaac Edwards, F. T. James, H. M. Lloyd, David Parry, B. J. Williams, Miss C. Jones (Matron of Mardy Hospital) and Miss Templeman (Supt. Nurse of the Merthyr Infirmary).

Coun. Parry proposed, and Coun. B. J. Williams seconded a vote of thanks to the Mayor for opening the building; Coun. F. T. James moved a similar compliment to the Mayoress, which Coun. H. M. Lloyd seconded; and Miss C. Jones, matron of Mardy Hospital, moved a vote of thanks to Lady Lewis, which was seconded by Miss Templeman, of the Merthyr Infirmary.

Refreshments were afterwards partaken of, and the interesting ceremony will be a memorable day in the history of the local police force.

– Merthyr Express 4 July 1925

Merthyr Central Police Station (left) and Fire Station shortly before demolition. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive
A Fire Engine outside the Fire Station in 1932. Photo courtesy of the Alan George Archive