The Dowlais Educational Settlement

Hello everyone. My name is Christine Trevett and I’m writing a history of the Educational Settlement in Dowlais from 1928, through the  Depression to beyond the Second World War, for Merthyr Tydfil Historical Society. Some people in the Borough still have memories of it.

I am coming across names of people who were linked with that Dowlais Settlement work and with John Dennithorne  the Settlement’s Warden,  but there are limited details or no details about the people named. Were they perhaps members of your family? Have older family members heard of them and of activities linked to the Dowlais Settlement?  I would love to know.

That Settlement’s work was centred around the Horse Street Club for unemployed men, The Armoury,  Trewern House, Gwernllwyn House and The Hafod, Pant.   Here are the people I would like to learn more about:

From the early 1930s onward

  • Margaret Gardner (née Margaret Morgan Jones), social worker distributing relief in food vouchers and clothing, later a Councillor, lived in West Grove.
  • Jeannie McConnell
  • ‘Bill’ (no surname) who  may have been the local unemployed miner who was put in charge of the gym from around 1929.  Or Bill may have had different roles in the Horse Street Club (in which case  who was the ex miner who ran the gym?).
  • Beryl (née Evans). She and ‘Bill’ were helping at the Settlement at the same time.
  • Celeste Davies – worked with young children at the Horse Street site
  • James Sullivan, gym instructor (was he known as ‘Jim’?)
  • Edward Bruten – who ran some classes at the Settlement
  • Bard Bracey – similarly was a tutor – and what was his relation to F.A. Bracey who taught French and German and ‘Swedish drill for juniors’ at the Settlement?
  • Mr Fuente, who taught Spanish.

Also

  1. Beryl Williams of Pant and
  2. Valerie Hargraves of Pant – these two may have had roles at The Armoury.
  3. Mary Horsfall of Gwernllwyn House, art patron and friend of the Settlement.

If you can shed any light on this I  can be contacted by email: rctcasagroup@gmail.com

Thanks, Christine 

5 thoughts on “The Dowlais Educational Settlement”

  1. Hi i am Ian Hargreaves and my mam is Val Williams and grandma Beryl but not much information on the armoury although heard them talk of it many time

    1. Hello Ian, thanks for replying. I would love to hear what they said – Could we talk through my address – rctcasagroup@gmail.co.uk ? You and your family will have known all kinds of things that I don’t – even if you think you don’t know much and it’s a bit of Merthyr/Dowlais history that will soon be lost. Hope you and yours are well in these difficult times, Christine

  2. C hristine . Both my grandfather Emlyn Davies and by father Elwyn Owen used to talk to John Dennithorne before and during the wa when he passed our Draper’s shop in East Street, opposite the police station. I was as a member of the social club in Gwernllwyn House. My music teacher in
    Cyfarthfa Artero Giardelli (old Jellybelly – nice man)also lived there for a time I believe and I was in his school orchestra. One person who may know more out it than me is Tony Lewis who was in school with me. He lived in Caeharris close to the settlement. After university he set up in legal practice in Dowlais and is still alive but living in London since his retirement unfortunately and had no computor.
    He is 90 now but still very alert. Best wish with your research

    1. Hello Alan, thanks a lot for the reply. Giardelli, you may know, became famous as an artist, though you knew him in his music teaching role. John Dennithorne took Giardelli into the Dowlais Settlement at one point (he’d lost his job because he was a conscientious objector) before he got a job teaching in Cyfarthfa – I’d love to ask you some questions, including about Gwernllwyn and any family memories about John Dennithorne. Would you be happy to contact me at the e-mail address rctcasagroup@gmail.com? Then we can chat. I hope so. Hope too that you and yours are keeping well in these difficult times. Best wishes, Christine

  3. Hi.My parents both worked at The Settlement prior to WW 2.
    My fathers name known as Walter Davies and hailed from Cadoxton,Barry.My mother Margaret Price came from Treherbert in the Rhondda.
    They both arrived in Merthyr by separate routes and fell in love with each other whilst working.
    They told me many stories of their work there and one name comes to mind,Ben Bowen Thomas,later to be knighted.
    My parents married and lived in Merthyr until moving away in 1939.

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