Following on from the previous article, here is a bit more about Samuel Homfray in the first instalment of another new (hopefully) regular feature.
Samuel Homfray was born in 1762, the fifth son of Francis Homfray and his second wife Jane. Francis Homfray (1725-1798) had been born into a successful industrial family, his father (also called Francis) had made his fortune in the iron industry at Coalbrookdale in Staffordshire. In 1749 Francis Homfray and Richard Jordan, also of Staffordshire, leased a water corn grist mill called Velin Griffith and a forge in the parish of Whitchurch, and in September 1782, he approached Anthony Bacon, owner of Cyfarthfa Ironworks, and leased the cannon foundry at the works to manufacture weapons and ammunitions.
In 1784 Homfray complained that he was not receiving sufficient metal and tapped Bacon’s furnace at Cyfarthfa. Francis Homfray worked the forge and mill until March 1786. However, after a disagreement with Bacon over the supply of iron, he gave up the lease of the Cyfarthfa property.
Francis encouraged two of his sons – Samuel and his older brother Jeremiah to lease land at Penydarren, next to the Morlais Brook and build an ironworks. After years of fierce competition with the Dowlais and Cyfarthfa Ironworks, they began to prosper. Samuel took over as proprietor of the Penydarren works, while Jeremiah moved to Ebbw Vale.
Samuel was one of the chief promoters of the Glamorganshire Canal, which opened in 1795 and cost £103,000, of which he subscribed £40,000 and which enabled the transporting of heavy manufactured iron to Cardiff docks. In 1804 Samuel won a 1000 guineas wager with Richard Crawshay as to which of them could first build a steam locomotive for use in their works. Homfray employed Richard Trevithick for this purpose and his locomotive won the bet, hauling five wagons, carrying ten tons of iron and seventy men, at a speed of five miles an hour.
In 1800, Samuel married Jane Morgan, daughter of Sir Charles Gould Morgan, 1st Baronet of Tredegar House, and thus obtained a favorable lease of mineral land at Tredegar, where he established the Tredegar Ironworks.
In 1813 he left the Penydarren Iron Company to concentrate his resources on developing the Tredegar Ironworks. Handicapped at Penydarren by a shortage of coal on the property, he faced no such problems when he built his new works. By 1823 Tredegar had five furnaces in blast, producing over 16,000 tons of iron each year.
Homfray’s connection with Penydarren was re-established in 1817 when his daughter Amelia married one of the works’ new owners, William Thompson.
In 1813 he was appointed High Sheriff of Monmouthshire and, having unsuccessfully standing as a candidate for a seat in Parliament for Brecknock in 1806, he was elected as Member of Parliament for the Borough of Stafford in 1818.
He relinquished his seat two years later, and he died on 22 May 1822 in London and was buried at Bassaleg.