The Melting Pot

Merthyr’s Modest Maestro

Many thanks to Carl Llewellyn for the following article:

This a tribute to the first musical director of the Dowlais Male Choir – Mr D.T. Davies L.R.A.M., F.R.C.O. M.B.E.

dt-davies

Born on 28 June 1900 in Dowlais, where he lived all his life, David Thomas Davies, affectionately known to all as “D.T.”, devoted a lifetime to music, rendering a priceless and distinguished contribution to the cultural life not only in the local community but in Wales as a whole.

To give D.T. the credit he deserved he began as a gifted amateur — his musical qualifications were obtained by part time study. He began his working life in 1914 as a clerk in the Local Iron Works, then in 1925 became a local Government employee. It was only in his later years that he taught music as a subject in school from 1953 until his retirement in 1965.

By nature a retiring, and reserved personality who shunned, indeed detested the limelight, when he stood before his Choirs or sat at the keyboard, this quiet unassuming man was transformed into a colossus before whom one sat in awe and admiration. Had he been born later, in the Television and Record era, he would have received star billing, and his massive talent would have reached and impressed a wider audience than those of us who were privileged to sing for him or listen to him play. His record of achievements in the musical world speaks volumes for his versatility as well for his brilliant musicianship.

Qualifications

D.T. attained his L.R.A.M. (Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music) in 1926 and his F.R.C.O. (Fellow of the Royal College of Organists) in 1934

Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales

Dowlais Ladies Choir – First Prize Treorchy 1928; First Prize Neath 1934 & First Prize Caernarfon 1935

Dowlais United Choir First Prize Fishguard 1936

Dowlais Male Choir First Prize Ruthin 1973

This achievement of three firsts in the three major choral competitions at the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales is considered rare, probably unique in the history of the National Eisteddfod.

As well as conducting choirs at the National Eisteddfod, D.T. also adjudicated in the classes for mixed choirs, male choirs, and organ competitions and on one occasion was the official accompanist for the Eisteddfod.

Cymanfaoedd Ganu

Since 1924 D.T. had conducted over 150 singing festivals in all parts of Wales as well as in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol.

Accompanist

D.T. was one of the old Penywern (Dowlais) Male Choir accompanists during its existence.

Organist

D.T. was the organist and precentor at Soar-Ynysgau Welsh Congregational Chapel Merthyr Tydfil from 1928 until his death in 1983.

Honours

1968 D.T. Davies was awarded the M.B.E. for services to music in Wales

1974 D.T. became an honorary Freeman of the County Borough of Merthyr Tydfil in recognition of a lifetime virtually dedicated to music.

D.T. is remembered for his humility in his genius, kindly gentleness and quiet humour, acclaim was thrust upon him – never sought.

What is certain is that the choristers of the Cor Meibion Dowlais, who knew D.T., would echo the words of Mr. John Haydn Davies (Treorci) Doyen of Welsh Male Choir conductors, in speaking of D.T. after Dowlais’ win at the 1973 National Eisteddfod— “Y Twysog Ei Hunain” – “The Prince Himself”.

dowlais-united-choir-with-d-t-davies-in-bryn-sion-a — D.T. Davies with the Dowlais United Choir in Bryn Sion Chapel, Dowlais

To read more about Dowlais Male Voice Choir, follow the link below:

http://dowlaismalechoir.co.uk/

Merthyr’s First Boxing Champion

Most people know of Eddie Thomas, Howard Winstone and Johnny Owen, but how many of you know anything about Jimmy Wilde?

Jimmy Wilde, or “The Mighty Atom,” “Ghost with the Hammer in his Hand” and “The Tylorstown Terror” as he was nicknamed, was born on 15 May 1892 in Quakers Yard, but by the time he was 12, Jimmy’s family had moved to Tylorstown in the Rhondda. The son of a miner, Jimmy followed his father into the colliery, and being so small, he was able to crawl through gullies impassable to most of his colleagues, which undoubtedly helped develop his renowned strength.

He started boxing at the age of 16 in fairground boxing booths, where crowds were amazed by his toughness and ability to knock down much larger opponents, most of which were local toughmen weighing around 200 lbs. He left Tylorstown Colliery in 1913, and in 1916, Wilde joined the British Army and was sent to Aldershot as a PT instructor.

The record books often show that Wilde started boxing professionally in 1911, but it is widely assumed (and later confirmed by boxing analysts), that he had been fighting professionally for at least four years before that, and his officially listed debut was on 26 December 1910, when he fought Les Williams to a no-decision in three rounds. His first win came on 1 January 1911, when he knocked out Ted Roberts in the third round.

Managed by Teddy Lewis, reserve captain of Pontypridd RFC, Wilde went undefeated in 103 bouts, all of which were held in Britain, and on 14 February 1916, he won the British flyweight title by beating Joe Symonds by a knockout in round twelve at the National Sporting Club in London. On 24 April 1916, Wilde beat Johnny Rosner by a knockout in the eleventh round at Liverpool Stadium to win the IBU World Flyweight title. In December of that year Wilde became recognised as the first World Flyweight Champion (the IBU title was only recognised in Europe) when he defeated Young Zulu Kid of the United States whose corner threw in the towel during the eleventh round of their bout at the Holborn Stadium.

During the First World War, Jimmy Wilde served as a Sergeant Instructor, fighting professionally only twice in 1917, and three times in 1918. Following the War, Wilde went to America in 1919; he toured the States beating an assortment of mainly much heavier opponents. The Americans grew to love Wilde and to this day he is revered by American boxing fans.

By 1921, Jimmy Wilde was 28 years old, had fought in hundreds of contests (possibly up to a thousand including booth fights) against bigger men and had held his world title for four years. Now he was to suffer only his third defeat (in 128 fights) when matched in a non-title fight against Pete Herman, who weighed in at 121 pounds to Jimmy’s 108 pounds. Wilde returned to the ring out of a sense of obligation to defend his title against Pancho Villa on 18 June 1923. After losing by a knockout, Wilde announced his retirement.

Jimmy Wilde lived the last few years of his life in the Cadoxton district of Barry, South Wales. With his final boxing winnings, Wilde entered into several business schemes, including a Welsh cinema chain and partnership in a cafe at Barry Island that was named ‘The Mighty Atom’ cafe. None was successful and he spent his final years in poverty. In 1965, Wilde suffered a serious mugging at a train station in Cardiff, from which he never recovered. His wife, Elizabeth, died in 1967, and two years later Wilde died in a hospital in Whitchurch. He was buried in Barry Cemetery.

Wilde had a record of 139 wins, 3 losses, 1 draws and 5 no-contests, with 99 wins by knockout, which makes him one of the most prolific knockout winners of all time. Ring Magazine, a publication which named him the 3rd greatest puncher of all time in 2003, has twice named him the greatest flyweight of all time (March 1975 and May 1994). In 1990, Wilde was elected into the International Boxing Hall Of Fame as a member of that institution’s inaugural class, a distinction shared with all-time greats such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Harry Greb, Benny Leonard and Henry Armstrong. In 1992 he was also inducted into the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame and one of his prize winning belts is part of the organisation’s display. Wilde was ranked as the number 1 flyweight of all-time by the International Boxing Research Organization in 2006.

william_howard_robinson_a_welsh_victory_at_the_national_sporting_club_1919 — The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, congratulates Jimmy Wilde after his defeat of Joe Lynch in 1919

If you wish to read more about Jimmy Wilde, check out the following website:

http://www.johnnyowen.com/jimmy_wilde.html

Heritage Calendar

Many thanks to Carolyn Jacob for the following:

The 2017 Old Merthyr Tydfil Heritage Calendar is now available. The calendar is dedicated to the memory of Alan George, the founder of the website, and features a selection of Alan’s favourite photographs, chosen by him shortly before his untimely death last year.

The calendar, which will cost £2.99 is currently available from Ynysfach Engine House, and will be available from Holdaway’s Newsagent, St Tydfil’s Church and Cyfarthfa Castle Museum from next week, or will be available via the Old Merthyr website within the next few weeks.

http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

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The 1849 Cholera Outbreak

In 1849 a deadly outbreak of cholera hit Merthyr Tydfil resulting in hundreds of deaths.

The summer of 1849 was a long, hot one, in which drought conditions prevailed. This caused many normal supplies of fresh water to dry up, and forced people to use much less safe sources of water. In cities and towns this often meant using water from sources which were seriously contaminated, like rivers and canals. Conditions were therefore just right for the serious spread of cholera. The 1849 outbreak began in Edinburgh in October of 1848, having arrived there from a German port. This outbreak would cause over 53,000 deaths in England and Wales. It reached Wales in May of 1849, the first outbreak occurring in Cardiff.

Lady Charlotte Guest wrote in her diary on 31 May: ‘There is great alarm at Cardiff about the cholera, which has broken out there with great violence.’

Meanwhile, The Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian began reporting the outbreak shortly after this, and gave advice to the people of the district how to deal with the outbreak:

‘THE STRICTEST CLEANLINESS SHOULD BE MAINTAINED – in person and in habitation – and having done all that can be done to effect this object two should calmly proceed with our usual occupations, placing firm reliance in the merciful providence of an All-wise deity. The circumstances in which we are placed should induce caution, but not nervous agitation or faithless misgivings. In the year 1832, when the cholera committed sad havoc in Swansea, a little boy told his mother that he had discovered an effectual remedy for the complaint in the 91^st Psalm – a portion of scripture which we commend to the perusal of our readers.’

In late May, cholera appeared in Merthyr. A four year old child caught the disease, and by the end of the month, six people had died. On 7 June, 22 deaths were reported in Merthyr and the same number two days later. In the following month, 349 deaths were reported.

On 31 July, Lady Charlotte Guest wrote in her diary: ‘I am sorry to say the accounts of the cholera at Dowlais are fearfully bad. They are beyond anything I could have imagined, sometimes upward of twenty people dying in one day, and eight men constantly employed in making coffins …one of our Infant School Mistresses is dead. One of the medical assistants sent down from London is dying, and the whole place seems in a most lamentable state.’

cholera-deaths

In July, 539 people died in Merthyr, and in August, the death toll reached an average of 36 a day. The infection continued to rage in the town until November when the winter rains helped to dispel the conditions in which the cholera thrived. At the end of the epidemic, Merthyr had experienced the second highest death toll in England and Wales (second only to Hull), with 1,682 having succumbed to the disease.

merthyrtydfil_town_sttydfilshospital_choleracemetary — St Tydfil’s Hospital and the Cholera Cemetery courtesy of Old Merthyr Tydfil (http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm)

If you have any information you would like to share, please leave a comment to the left or email me at merthyr.history@gmail.com

Merthyr Tydfil Heritage Forum Event

2016-10-15-mthf

Merthyr’s Spitfire

Following on from yesterday’s blog about HMS Beverley, here is a newspaper cutting from the Merthyr Express of 31 October 1942 referring to yet another bit of fund raising by the people of Merthyr during the Second World War:

5000cheque_merthyrsspitfire_merthyrexpress_1942_2

merthyrsspitfire_merthyrexpress_october31st_1942 — The Merthyr Tydfil Spitfire. If you look closely you can see the name of the town just below the cockpit

Merthyr’s Destroyer

Did you know that Merthyr adopted its very own warship in the Second World War?

Between 1941 and 1942, the concept of National Savings was introduced by the British government. Each region in the country was provided with a savings target to achieve. This was based on the region’s population, with each general level of savings having a class of warship assigned. This became known as ‘Warship Week’. In one such ‘Warship Week’ in February 1942, Merthyr Tydfil raised the amazing sum of £57,000, the highest amount raised during the period, and was thus ‘awarded’ a ship – HMS Beverley.

HMS Beverley, was actually an old American ship – USS Branch, a Clemson-class destroyer that entered service in 1920. Built by Newport News Shipbuilding, the ship was laid down on 25 October 1918 and launched on 19 April 1919. Commissioned on 3 April 1920 for service in US Navy, she was held in Reserve in 1939 until she was transferred to the Royal Navy under the Lend Lease Agreement on 8 October 1940 and commissioned at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

HMS Beverley was assigned to convoy escort duties, and during 1941 escorted several Atlantic convoys, attacking U-boats on three separate occasions, and escorted several convoys to Malta.

In April 1942 she was an escort for Convoy PQ 14 en route to North Russia. On the journey the convoy was attacked by a superior force of enemy destroyers, which had approached unobserved during a snow storm and fired several torpedoes at a range of 9,000 yards. One merchant ship was sunk. The enemy returned four times and took part in short gunnery duels, but did not close the range below 8,000 yards. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, HMS Beverley and the other escorts outfought the German opposition.

Following a refit, HMS Beverley returned to Atlantic Convoy duties, and would soon see her finest hour, taking part in the one of the most bitterly fought convoy actions of the entire Battle of the Atlantic: the defence of convoys HX-229 and SC-122. The convoys were attacked by over 40 U-boats, and despite heavy losses to the merchant ships, the U-boats were beaten off by HMS Beverley and her fellow escorts.

On her next voyage across the Atlantic, whilst escorting Convoy ON-176, some 360 miles southeast of Greenland, HMS Beverley collided with the merchantman, SS Cairnvolona on 9 April 1943. The incident, occurring in “thick weather,” severely handicapped the destroyer. Two days later, U-188 chanced across her and torpedoed her. The old ship went down quickly, leaving only four survivors. 139 men, including her commanding officer, went down with the ship.

berverley_ships_crest — HMS Beverley Ship’s Crest

For more information on HMS Beverley please check out the following links:

http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-11US-HMS_Beverley.htm

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/crews/ship2856.html

Merthyr’s Forgotten Literary Pioneer

Merthyr Tydfil is currently commemorating the 60th anniversary of the death of a forgotten pioneer son, the distinguished playwright, J.O. Francis (1882-1956).

He was born in 15, Mary Street in Twynyrodyn but spent his childhood and youth at 41, High Street, living above the shop of his blacksmith father, David Francis. His Rhondda-born mother, Dorothy, was a dressmaker and milliner. John Oswald (known as J.O. for most of his adult life) was the eldest of five children. He was a gifted scholar, having received a good education in the “learned paradise” of the new County Intermediate and Technical School, at which he became a pupil on the day it opened in 1896. It gave him the chance of going to university at Aberyswtyth, whence he graduated with a first in English Literature in 1904. He never forgot that good fortune and he never forgot Merthyr Tydfil for all it had meant to him. It was the inspiration of his writing: the many memories he recalled depict the Merthyr Tydfil of our grandparents and great-grandparents. He is part of our heritage but has been sadly neglected. He was a man of many enthusiasms with a passion for the theatre and for rugby. He gained fame two decades before the celebrated Jack Jones, who was a contemporary and who echoed many of the ground-breaking ideas of J.O. Francis, who wrote for most of his life living as a proud London Welshman in an area of London that made the theatres, the London Welsh playing fields and Twickenham internationals easily available. He was much respected as a gifted dramatist and stylish essayist and was a popular broadcaster. “He was a man of many opinions and no prejudices”.

The Merthyr Tydfil Leisure Trust, the libraries, the researchers at the Ynysfach Engine House, the Redhouse theatre staff, Cyfarthfa Museum, the Merthyr Tydfil Museum and Heritage Group and many individuals are pleased to be able to celebrate belatedly the life and work of a once famous pioneering son of the town. He wrote the first Anglo-Welsh realist drama about the working class. It was called ‘Change’ about a family of Welsh colliers at the time of a strike and he helped to make amateur dramatics a new culture in the grim industrial valleys of South Wales and beyond- all in need of some fun and entertainment.

Many thanks to Mary Owen for contributing the above article.

A loaned portrait of the writer, commissioned by Lord Kemsley and painted by Ceri Richards is on view in the Wedding Room of Cyfarthfa Castle.

img_4247a — J. O. Francis painted by Ceri Richards

J.O. Francis (1882-1956) The Distinguished Merthyr-born Dramatist is an appreciation of his life and work, written by Mary Owen. It includes many extracts from the work of J. O. Francis. It will be launched by the library in Merthyr Tydfil on 12 October at 11.30 a.m. in the courtyard of The Redhouse.

book-launch

Bridging the gap

One of the most striking structures in Merthyr if Cefn Viaduct. You can’t miss it, but how much do you know about it?

viaduct_2 — Cefn Viaduct photo courtesy of Christopher Surridge

The viaduct was commissioned by the Brecon and Merthyr Railway company to span the Taf Fawr Valley in Cefn-Coed-y-Cymmer. Before work began, a special Act of Parliament had to be sought in 1862 to allow construction. The viaduct was designed by Alexander Sutherland and Henry Conybeare, and was built by Thomas Savin and John Ward. In early 1866, the project faced disaster when Savin and Ward suffered serious financial and legal difficulties. It was eventually completed with the assistance of Alexander Sutherland, and was completed on 29 October 1866 at a cost of £25,000.

cefnviaduct_beingbuilt_adj — Cefn Viaduct under construction courtesy of Old Merthyr Tydfil (http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm)

The viaduct is 770 ft long, and at its highest point stands 115 ft high; it has 15 arches, each one 39 ft 6 inches wide. It was planned to be constructed entirely of limestone , but a strike by stonemasons in February 1866 caused the company to buy 800,000 bricks and use bricklayers to complete the 15 arches. The most striking feature of the viaduct is its elegant curve. The viaduct was apparently designed this way to avoid encroaching on Robert Thompson Crawshay’s land.

Smaller, but no less impressive is Pontsarn Viaduct. This was also designed by Alexander Sutherland and built by Savin and Ward to bridge the Taf Fechan Valley. Opened in 1867, Pontsarn is 455 ft long and 92 ft high at its highest point and comprises seven arches. Unlike Cefn Viaduct, it is built entirely of limestone.

The Merthyr to Brecon Line stopped carrying passenger trains in 1961, but goods trains continued to use the viaducts, with the last train crossing them on 1 August 1966. Both viaducts are now Grade II* listed and form part of the Taff Trail.